[coyotos-dev] Executable object mapping

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Wed, 2007-05-23 at 11:51 -0400, Christopher Nelson wrote:

> This opens up a lot more questions in my mind regarding the how of
> many things (like DLLs, and executable object mapping)

If by "executable object mapping" you mean something like "dynamcally
loading a .o so that it can be executed", then I assert that this is
merely a dynamic library in which the dynamic loader has been
re-implemented by the application. As we talk through the DLL issue,
this issue will fall out.

If by "executable object mapping" you mean "the initial mapping of the
primary application binary", the answer to that is very simple: the
mechanism for application construction goes as follows:

  1. We use a conventional linker to produce an ELF binary
  2. We then use what is, in effect, a loader, to copy the
     ELF binary into an initially empty address space.
  3. When the application is started, it comes into the world
     with a copy-on-write instance of this space.


shap