Re: elf(5) and ld.so(8): DT_RPATH deprecated - really?

[Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>]

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Hi Joachim,

On Fri, Apr 19, 2024 at 08:43:33AM +0200, Joachim Wuttke wrote:
> Pages elf(5) and ld.so(8) say that DT_RPATH is deprecated.

The blames are:

commit 28d979c8c7fbdca65e221eca4e21823735f5db8d
Author: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Date:   Fri Jul 15 12:06:06 2005 +0000

    Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
    tweaked the short description to include definition of 'ELF'
    add ELFOSABI_NONE to the ELFOSABI_ list
    tweak/add more machines to EM_ list for ehdr->e_machine
    fix indenting to be consistent
    tweak the display of the ELF_ST_* macros
    document the Elf_Dyn structure

and

commit 121edebe2e0b36c3cfc306fbf88bfb6d17993b63
Author: Krónos <Krónos@Sāturnus>
Date:   Sun Dec 23 23:36:00 2001 +0100

    man-pages 1.46
    
    Link: <https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/ftpdocs/linux-local/manpages.archive/>
    Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>


I also found a few pages talking about it being deprecated:

<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67131565/how-do-i-set-dt-rpath-or-dt-runpath>
<https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7967848/use-rpath-but-not-runpath>

> This is inconsistent with ld(1), which does not warn that
> --disable-new-dtags is deprecated.

I've added bug-binutils@ to the thread, in case they want to update
their manual to add a deprecation notice.

> And it is not credible. A huge amount of software would
> break down if support for DT_RPATH were ever removed.

Nobody said it would be removed soon.  But it seems people want to
remove it "eventually", with that eventually possibly being in a couple
of centuries, if computers still exist.

But if you have the intention of using it in new software, or keeping it
in existing software, maybe you could give your reasons to those who
deprecated it, so that either you convince them of its usefulness, or
they convince you of not using it.

Have a locely day!
Alex

> Regards, Joachim

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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