Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!apollo!mrst!sdti!mjy
From: mjy@sdti.UUCP (Michael J. Young)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Aliasing text and data segments of a process
Message-ID: <202@sdti.UUCP>
Date: 20 Jan 88 22:24:00 GMT
Reply-To: mjy@sdti.UUCP (Michael J. Young)
Organization: Software Development Technologies, Sudbury MA
Lines: 15


Is there a way in Unix to create an "alias" between the text and data
segments of a process?  More specifically, how does one go about executing a
block of code that was generated in a data segment?

I'm not really talking about self-modifying code, in which a program
attempts to modify its own text segment, but rather self-generating code, in
which a program "compiles" a block of code into its data segment (created
via malloc() perhaps?) and then tries to execute it.  An obvious application
of this might be an incremental compiler, but I can think of other reasons
why I might want to do this as well.
-- 
Mike Young - Software Development Technologies, Inc., Sudbury MA 01776
UUCP     : {decvax,harvard,linus,mit-eddie}!necntc!necis!mrst!sdti!mjy
Internet : mjy%sdti.uucp@harvard.harvard.edu      Tel: +1 617 443 5779