Xref: news2.mv.net comp.os.msdos.djgpp:3923
From: malcolm AT manawatu DOT gen DOT nz (Malcolm Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: ELF wanted
Date: Thu, 16 May 1996 09:49:59 GMT
Organization: Grafik Software
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Martynas Kunigelis <martynas DOT kunigelis AT VM DOT KTU DOT LT> wrote:

>have the DLL implementation made easier. But what about Win32? AFAIK Win32
>uses COFF, and, as Malcolm said, if someone writes Win32 support (will anyone?
>?????), we could use the advantages of Win32 COFF-based DLL engine. So the
>point is: either we (?) start making the Win32 support or begin adopting
>DJGPP for ELF. But wait, could it be that both ways were possible? I mean
>having Win32 support with ELF? Or, perhaps, move Win32 to ELF ;-) ?? Bill?
>Malcolm? What do you think? Is adding Win32 support *very* complicated? Or are
>header files and that kinda stuff the only problem? Is a different linker
>reqired or just a different stub loader?

I was going to try to attempt a Win32 linker a while back (but no
longer have the time) and so did a little research on it. I managed to
find out the PE/COFF specs for the Win32 version. My plan of attack
was to write a completely new linker, this may not have been the most
ideal solution, but it seemed the easiest from my point of view (more
code writing, but less unknown code) and the linker would then deal
with '.def' files and the constructs required for dlls.
As for ELF format Win32 progs this would be a problem. Every
executable is dynamically linked to the kernal dll's when it is loaded
by windows, the information about where the imported and exported
functions are is integrated into the PE/COFF format. You might use a
stub system, but then you have to directly emulate every api call
through the stub (big stub and a fair performance hit I'm sure). There
is already RSXWDK for this (I've never used RSX so this assumption
might be wrong).

If there is anyone interested in Win32 support for DJGPP then I'd be
happy to help them (direct to info etc.)

Malcolm