Re: RFC: Adding non-PIC executable support to MIPS

[David VomLehn <dvomlehn@cisco.com>]

Richard Sandiford wrote:
> [Sorry for the 3-way crosspost!]
> 
> One of the big holes in the MIPS ABI has always been the lack of support
> for non-PIC executables.
...

> I'll describe my implementation
> below, then compare it to what I understand CS's version to be.
> CS folks: please correct me if I'm wrong.

This sounds like really good stuff and, on first reading, it all seems to make 
sense to me. My only real concern is documentation of these changes. The MIPS ABI 
(http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/devel/assembly/mipsabi32.pdf) is currently 
moribund. The document that describes it hasn't been updated in since 1996 and 
gcc is not fully conformant (see, for example, the assumptions required for 
correct stack backtracing). It would take significant work to resurrect this but 
it certainly would be helpful to have a current document that completely 
describes the MIPS ABI, or at least the current ELF format, as currently 
implemented on Linux, especially if it is to be extended. The logical home for 
something like this would probably be the Linux Standard Base project hosted by 
the Linux Foundation.

-- 
David VomLehn, dvomlehn@cisco.com
The opinions expressed herein are likely mine, but might not be my employer's...




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