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Path: utzoo!yetti!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: linkers (was MAJOR ANSI C FLAW)
Message-ID: <1678@geac.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 15:27:00 EST
Article-I.D.: geac.1678
Posted: Fri Oct 23 15:27:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 10:47:42 EST
References: <1132@gilsys.UUCP> <1246@bsu-cs.UUCP> <6543@brl-smoke.ARPA> <104@aimt.UUCP> <6562@brl-smoke.ARPA> <585@geowhiz.UUCP>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown)
Organization: The little blue rock next to that twinkly star.
Lines: 20
Keywords: linkers name-length
Summary: sorta hard...

In article <585@geowhiz.UUCP> karsh@geowhiz.UUCP (Bruce Karsh) writes:
>  Am I missing something in this argument?  Is the argument that vendors
>are able to write ANSI C compilers, but they are unable to modify their
>linkers to allow long names? 

  Actually its fairly easy to change a linker (you add a record type,
however un-unix-like that might sound)
  What is hard is doing it *quickly*.  You have to wait (on average)
about three releases before dropping support for the old stuff.

  I did post the algorithm for switching over semi-transparently,
but I think it fell into the nearby black hole.

 --dave

-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind)
 CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 |  every 6 months.