[LLVMdev] lld file format as native OS executable format

[bigcheesegs at gmail.com]

On May 5, 2012, at 3:01 PM, Shea Levy <shea at shealevy.com> wrote:

> On 05/02/2012 01:00 PM, Dave Zarzycki wrote:
>> Shea,
>> 
>> Feasible? Sure, anything is feasible. A good idea? Not really. The internal lld file format is an _intermediate_ data structure designed to make creating the final executable straightforward and fast. It isn't designed to be an executable format itself. In fact, the reason why linkers can often be slow is because the intermediate and final object file formats are conflated.
> 
> Hm, OK. Does the target executable format play a role in the 
> intermediate steps the linker takes? That is, are there certain features 
> or optimizations that only work for specific target formats?
> 

Yes, the target format determines the features available and passes run. For instance, each format handles shared object linkage differently. The atom format is able to represent different formats, but any actual file is specific to an output format.

-  Michael Spencer
Sent from my iPhone
>> davez
>> 
>> 
>> On May 2, 2012, at 8:29 AM, Shea Levy<shea at shealevy.com>  wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello,
>>> 
>>> Would it be feasible to use the internal lld file format as the native
>>> executable format for an OS? Are there performance or space
>>> considerations that would make this a poor choice?
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Shea Levy
>>> 
>>> P.S. please CC me on replies, I'm not subscribed.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> LLVM Developers mailing list
>>> LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
>>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu         http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev