[LLVMdev] LLD archive library design

[Shankar Easwaran]

Hi,

I have started to work on support for Reading archive libraries in lld 
and thought of using the llvm/lib/ArchiveReader for this.

The ArchiveReader doesnot fully support GNU archive libraries (thin 
archives), do you think we should continue using llvm/lib/ArchiveReader ?

I was chatting with Michael and looks like there have been discussions 
and small sketches done on reading archive libraries in lld. Can you 
provide pointers to the design ?

I think the first set of features that lld needs to support is

1) Read the archive libraries and pull in the right object file which 
defines the symbol
2) Read the archive libraries and pull all the object files (if force load)

There are os/architecture specific portions of resolving symbols with 
the archive libraries when it comes to common symbols, do you have any 
suggestions on this ?

Thanks

Shankar Easwaran
Qualcomm Innovation Center Inc.