Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!nrl-cmf!ukma!rutgers!cmcl2!adm!xadmx!rbj@nav.icst.nbs.gov From: rbj@nav.icst.nbs.gov (Root Boy Jim) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: IEEE 1003.2 Message-ID: <18010@adm.BRL.MIL> Date: 4 Jan 89 07:18:49 GMT Sender: news@adm.BRL.MIL Lines: 50 ? From: Chris Torek ? For that matter, why do we need object archives in the first place? ? They are just a hack to save space (and perhaps, but not necessarily, ? time). How about /lib/libc/*.o? Which is what `-lc' would `mean'. How about /lib/c/*.o? ? (About 1/2 :-) ---the file system is *supposed* to be clean enough and ? fast enough to support this sort of thing; why *are* we working against ? it?) Yeah, except that the directorys aren't sorted or hashed so you can't use them very well as a database :-) (yes, I know how to sort directorys) ? From: Eduardo Krell ? inodes were a scarce resource back then ... ? We had an implementation of archives as plain directories (with the proper ? changes to ar, ld, etc), and it worked just fine. Exactly! And `ranlib dir' just creates `dir/__.SYMDEF'! ? Eduardo Krell AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ ? From: Gordon Burditt ? Lots of the object files in libraries are tiny. A considerable number of ? them just load a couple of registers and execute some kind of trapping ? instruction. These are likely to be smaller than the amount of disk space ? used by an inode plus a directory entry. ? Take, for example, the libc.a on my system (Tandy 6000). ? There are 202 files in libc.a, and it takes up 211 512-byte blocks, not ? counting indirect blocks. The average size of an object file, including ? the ar header, is 534 bytes. So glom some of them together! Chances are, if you're gonna use `open', you're gonna use `close', and most likely `read', `write', and `lseek' too. And even if you don't, the minimal extra space isn't gonna kill you. And with shared librarys, it doen't even matter, as you get the whole thing anyway (at least I think so :-). (Root Boy) Jim Cottrell (301) 975-5688 or Crackers and Worms -- Breakfast of Champions!