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From: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Coding standards (was Re: Programmer productivity)
Message-ID: <6704@drilex.UUCP>
Date: 7 Dec 89 23:14:46 GMT
References: <1989Dec5.152225.25770@twwells.com> <14836@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: dricejb@drilex.UUCP (Craig Jackson drilex1)
Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA
Lines: 32

In article <14836@well.UUCP> Jef Poskanzer <jef@well.sf.ca.us> writes:
>In the referenced message, bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) wrote:
>}In article <9185@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
>}: WHAT?  What year is this?  I don't think I've ever used a linker that
>}: didn't eliminate unused routines.  Any such linker would be seriously
>}: brain damaged.
>}
>}Most linkers will not take, from a single object file, just those
>}routines needed by the rest of the program.
>
>Tim is (almost certainly) wrong that he has never used such a brain
>damaged linker, since every Unix linker is brain damaged in this fashion.

Tim has been on the Mac for a while; I think Mac linkers *may* be
different in this regard.

>However, T. Bill is wrong that most linkers have this brain damage, since
>pretty much every NON-Unix linker works correctly.
>  Jef Poskanzer  jef@well.sf.ca.us  {ucbvax, apple, hplabs}!well!jef

I know for a fact that MS-DOS linkers have this 'brain damage', even though
real librarians are available.  The semantics of C make it somewhat
harder to eliminate the dead code.  (Not impossible. The problem is making
sure the static stuff is handled correctly.)

I suspect that the MIPS linker can do this, because it can do link-time
optimization.  I haven't seen it, but the linker for Unisys A-Series C may be
able to do this, because it can do this for other languages on that machine.
-- 
Craig Jackson
dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com
{bbn,axiom,redsox,atexnet,ka3ovk}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}