-Things that still need to be handled: -*- Text -*-
+Things that still need to be done: -*- Text -*-
- o - change the memory usage to reflect the message which follows the
- page break.
- o - implement bfd_abort, which should close the bfd but not alter the
- filesystem.
- o - update the bfd doc; write a how-to-write-a-backend doc.
- o - change reloc handling as per Steve's suggestion.
- (more details please.....)
-\f
-Changing the way bfd uses memory. The new convention is simple:
-
- o - bfd will never write into user-supplied memory, nor attempt to
- free it.
- o - closing a bfd may reclaim all bfd-allocated memory associated
- with that bfd.
- - - bfd_target_list will be the one exception; you must reclaim the
- returned vector yourself.
+ o - A source of space lossage is that all the target-dependent code
+ is in a single bfd_target structure. Hence all the code for
+ *writing* object files is still pulled into all the applications
+ that only care about *reading* (gdb, nm, objdump), while gas has
+ to carry along all the unneeded baggage for reading objects. And
+ so on. This would be a substantial change, and the payoff would
+ not all that great (essentially none if bfd is used as a shared
+ library).
-Interface implications are minor (get_symcount_upper_bound will go
-away; bfd_cannicalize_symtab will allocate its own memory, etc).
+ o - The storage needed by BFD data structures is also larger than strictly
+ needed. This may be difficult to do much about.
-Certain operations consume a lot of memory; for them manual
-reclaimation is available:
+ o - implement bfd_abort, which should close the bfd but not alter the
+ filesystem.
- o - bfd_canonicalize_symtab will return a pointer to a
- null-terminated vector of symbols. Subsequent calls may or may
- not return the same pointer.
- bfd_canonicalize_relocs will do the same; returning a pointer to
- an array of arelocs. Calling this function will read symbols in
- too.
+ o - update the bfd doc; write a how-to-write-a-backend doc, take out
+ the stupid quips and fill in all the blanks.
- o - bfd_reclaim_relocs will free the memory used by these relocs.
- the symbols will be untouched.
- bfd_reclaim_symtab (ne bfd_reclaim_symbol_table) will free the
- memory allocated by canonialize_symtab.
- Since relocations point to symbols, any relocations obtained by a
- call to bfd_canonicalize_relocs will be reclaimed as well.
+ o - upgrade the reloc handling as per Steve's suggestion.
+\f
+Copyright (C) 2012-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
- o - if you don't call the reclaim_ functions, the memory will be
- reclaimed at bfd_close time.
+Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
+are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
+notice and this notice are preserved.
projects / deliverable / binutils-gdb.git / blobdiff