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From: mib@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell)
Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Subject: Re: Mach-O and COFF
Message-ID: <MIB.91May1162316@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 1 May 91 20:23:16 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.054735.7606@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
	<MIKE.91Apr30163345@yalla.tuwien.ac.at> <7552@auspex.auspex.com>
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In-Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com's message of 1 May 91 17:24:18 GMT

In article <7552@auspex.auspex.com> guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes:

   >Mach-O is more universal, it allows you to assign start values to
   >registers (does this work in COFF as well? -  I dunno.) 

   Neither COFF nor ELF, as I remember, have this, although one way to
   assign start values to registers is to stick code to do so at the start
   address - is the ability to have "exec*()" or its moral equivalent load
   arbitrary values to registers useful enough that this feature is worth
   having?

Yes.  It allows you to have unexec programs which can't relocate the
executable still function.

	-mib