Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
After hitting some troubles with optlink in the past (though my problems
got solved others may be not)
I was in constant search for alternatives.
The good news:
there *do* happen to be very versatile linker for windows able to
produce 32/64bit PE, that supports OMF format and so on. Another cool
thing that has is so called mix-mode linking i.e. linking objects
produced by different compilers with different RTLs (tricky but might
worth the effort).
Link to ftp with docs and binary: ftp://ftp.styx.cabel.net/pub/UniLink/
According to author it does fully support DMC++ along with a huge pack
of other C++ compilers.
Now the bad news:
it doesn't quite work with DMD for the moment. It's able to link test.d,
but fails to link test2.d. (see attach) Stating that the resulting OMF
is invalid. I asked the developer about it, his reply:
/reply
DM is in list of supported compilers (with DM C extensions). But D
extension in sample is suspicious. There it attempt to define "select
any" comdat that referenced to TLS-type segment. This is similar to common
backend error. Another possibility is that it is an D "extension". But
we don't possess documentation of D object format extensions and only
can gess what it is.
If the D becomes common used language we can "examine" its new
features and take in into consideration. But... Maybe is's easier to
contact with D developer and ask for new features in objects.
/end reply
QUESTION
--->>>
So here I am asking what kind of OMF extensions DMD uses, and what's difference
between test.d and test2.d in terms of object file output?
<<<---
Any hints on where to look for them are also welcome.
If they are minor then we can convince the developer
and have 64bit linker to experiment with on windows.
NOTES
I used dmd 2.051, though with 2.050 it's the same issue;
command line:
dmd -c.d
For those interested in experimenting with unilink themselves,
use the following config (ulink.cfg) adjusting the path to dmd as needed:
-zkernel32;advapi32;user32;wsock32;shell32;snn.lib
-LC:\dmd2\windows\lib
-Go
Then linking is just: ulink .obj
--
Dmitry Olshansky
import std.stdio;
void main(){
writeln("Hello world!\n");
}import std.stdio;
void main(){
// auto magic = A!(int)(42);
writeln(32);
}
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Yeah I can reproduce the same thing as you have. I did manage to convert an OMF to COFF file format, and link it with GCC (MinGW). See my thread here: http://www.digitalmars.com/pnews/read.php?server=news.digitalmars.com&group=digitalmars.D&artnum=127079 I have yet to try it on more complex examples though. Give it a try and let me know if it works? :)
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Perhaps this page would be helpful for the linker guys: http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/abi.html
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 23.01.2011 20:43, Andrej Mitrovic wrote: Yeah I can reproduce the same thing as you have. I did manage to convert an OMF to COFF file format, and link it with GCC (MinGW). See my thread here: http://www.digitalmars.com/pnews/read.php?server=news.digitalmars.com&group=digitalmars.D&artnum=127079 I have yet to try it on more complex examples though. Give it a try and let me know if it works? :) Well after a pass through omf2d, the ulink says about the resulting obj: Fatal: Entry point must be specified So, yes it strips something, yet it's no longer an invalid OMF ;) Anyhow after jumping though some hoops with objconv I got ld to linktime, but it gets a pack of unresolved externals from D's runtime/phobos and I don't think converting them all is wise idea. -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Yeah, we're kind of stuck with Optlink for now.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Dmitry Olshansky wrote: If the D becomes common used language we can "examine" its new features and take in into consideration. But... Maybe is's easier to contact with D developer and ask for new features in objects. If the author wants to email me with any specific questions, I'd be happy to help him.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 23.01.2011 23:55, Walter Bright wrote: Dmitry Olshansky wrote: If the D becomes common used language we can "examine" its new features and take in into consideration. But... Maybe is's easier to contact with D developer and ask for new features in objects. If the author wants to email me with any specific questions, I'd be happy to help him. Yeah, that's the problem, I suppose he would not bother with D support himself unless someone proves it's usefulness. It's more like we need a little help not the other way around. Well, anyway I can mail him and hope that he will do it just out of curiosity, what's yours relevant email then? May I just as well tell him that you are interested in it or anything? -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Hopefully we can get the author to support dmd. I can't wait years until optlink might support x64.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Dmitry Olshansky wrote: On 23.01.2011 23:55, Walter Bright wrote: Dmitry Olshansky wrote: If the D becomes common used language we can "examine" its new features and take in into consideration. But... Maybe is's easier to contact with D developer and ask for new features in objects. If the author wants to email me with any specific questions, I'd be happy to help him. Yeah, that's the problem, I suppose he would not bother with D support himself unless someone proves it's usefulness. It's more like we need a little help not the other way around. Well, anyway I can mail him and hope that he will do it just out of curiosity, what's yours relevant email then? May I just as well tell him that you are interested in it or anything? First off, there are no D extensions to the OMF. There was an extension added around 1993 or so to support long identifier names. There were also a couple extensions to the codeview debug format, which are documented in the ABI. My offer is if there is something specific about the OMF files generated that I can explain to him, I'd be happy to do so. My mail is walter followed by digitalmars.com.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Walter Bright Wrote: > Dmitry Olshansky wrote: > > Well, anyway I can mail him and hope that he will do it just out of > > curiosity, what's yours relevant email then? > > May I just as well tell him that you are interested in it or anything? > > > > My offer is if there is something specific about the OMF files generated that > I > can explain to him, I'd be happy to do so. My mail is walter followed by > digitalmars.com. Any news here?
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Trass3r wrote: Walter Bright Wrote: Dmitry Olshansky wrote: Well, anyway I can mail him and hope that he will do it just out of curiosity, what's yours relevant email then? May I just as well tell him that you are interested in it or anything? My offer is if there is something specific about the OMF files generated that I can explain to him, I'd be happy to do so. My mail is walter followed by digitalmars.com. Any news here? No, I have not heard anything.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 26.01.2011 21:52, Walter Bright wrote: Trass3r wrote: Walter Bright Wrote: Dmitry Olshansky wrote: Well, anyway I can mail him and hope that he will do it just out of curiosity, what's yours relevant email then? May I just as well tell him that you are interested in it or anything? My offer is if there is something specific about the OMF files generated that I can explain to him, I'd be happy to do so. My mail is walter followed by digitalmars.com. Any news here? No, I have not heard anything. I've got their detailed report on the sample object file, and relayed it to Walter. Something related to D's stance on TLS it seems. With me being middle man all this can take some extra time, but I don't mind. The end result may still well worth it. -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
I've got their detailed report on the sample object file, and relayed it to Walter. Something related to D's stance on TLS it seems. With me being middle man all this can take some extra time, but I don't mind. The end result may still well worth it. Hope so too.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
I wonder why this tool isn't promoted in any way, no website etc. I also wonder if he was willing to make it open-source. Then we could help support D and if it works someday, we can even include D symbol demangling :)
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 28.01.2011 13:21, Trass3r wrote: I wonder why this tool isn't promoted in any way, no website etc. That's actually strange and funny in it's own right. I got to this ftp only because I was 100% sure that tool existed, as a friend of mine suggested to use it instead of Borland's crappy linker few years ago. I also wonder if he was willing to make it open-source. Then we could help support D and if it works someday, we can even include D symbol demangling :) First things first, we need it to fully support DMD. Then any political/licensing terms can be discussed. -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On Friday, 11 February 2011 at 19:11:28 UTC, Daniel Gibson wrote: Am 11.02.2011 19:56, schrieb Dmitry Olshansky: Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. Best regards, UniLink That's just plain awesome ;) Great :) I know this is off topic, but... How does one get in contact with the developers of Unilink? Kurt
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
17-Jan-2013 19:22, Kurt Nagel пишет: On Friday, 11 February 2011 at 19:11:28 UTC, Daniel Gibson wrote: Am 11.02.2011 19:56, schrieb Dmitry Olshansky: Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. Best regards, UniLink That's just plain awesome ;) Great :) I know this is off topic, but... How does one get in contact with the developers of Unilink? Kurt Going by readme it says that bug reports and such are to be sent to: ulink at styx.cabel.net I've contacted them previously through this e-mail so it definitely works. -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Just another thought: dmd uses ld on linux, couldn't it use MinGW's ld on Windows?
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 2011-02-06 23:26, Trass3r wrote: Just another thought: dmd uses ld on linux, couldn't it use MinGW's ld on Windows? MinGW's ld doesn't use the same object format as DMD/DMC -- /Jacob Carlborg
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Just another thought: dmd uses ld on linux, couldn't it use MinGW's ld on Windows? MinGW's ld doesn't use the same object format as DMD/DMC I know, of course this would include discarding OMF.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
I found this gem in digitalmars' bookshelf: http://www.digitalmars.com/bibliography.html#fileformats
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. Best regards, UniLink That's just plain awesome ;) -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Am 11.02.2011 19:56, schrieb Dmitry Olshansky: > Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: > > > Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. > > Best regards, > UniLink > > > > That's just plain awesome ;) > Great :)
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 2/11/11 12:56 PM, Dmitry Olshansky wrote: Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. Best regards, UniLink That's just plain awesome ;) Is UniLink working with 64 bits? Andrei
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 12.02.2011 3:13, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: On 2/11/11 12:56 PM, Dmitry Olshansky wrote: Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. Best regards, UniLink That's just plain awesome ;) Is UniLink working with 64 bits? Andrei Yes, that's actually one of it's benefits, as I told somewhere along the thread. To be 101% sure I just linked a simple 'hello x64' program. -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Hopefully that release will come soon ;)
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Dmitry Olshansky wrote: Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. Best regards, UniLink That's just plain awesome ;) yeah, it would be great to be able to link against anything else in the windows world. I just tried unilink on a small program compiled with dmd-2.051 and it worked alright. Surprisingly, the executable is less than half the size of the optlink generated file. Comparing the map files, it does not seem to reference less symbols (the corrupted map files written by optlink do not allow perfect comparison), so maybe there is a rather large alignment used by optlink? Unfortunately, unilink does not support the debug information emitted by dmd: UniLink v1.07 [beta] (build 1.19) Warning: CV(1)-style debug-info not supported Warning: Linked modules don't contain source-level debug information BTW: The authors seem to plan to make unilink a commercial product. Here's a quote from the help file: "If current version of UniLink is beta (all other versions are commercial and can't be used w/o license), keep in mind, any beta will "yaff" after ~1.5 month of expired."
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 2/12/11, Rainer Schuetze wrote: > > BTW: The authors seem to plan to make unilink a commercial product. > Here's a quote from the help file: "If current version of UniLink is > beta (all other versions are commercial and can't be used w/o license), > keep in mind, any beta will "yaff" after ~1.5 month of expired." > Great, from one closed-source linker to another. What linker does GDC use on Windows? And has anyone had any success with using it on Windows?
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 2/12/11 3:30 PM, Andrej Mitrovic wrote: What linker does GDC use on Windows? And has anyone had any success with using it on Windows? IIRC, it emits COFF and uses the ld from MinGW to link. David
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 2/12/11, David Nadlinger wrote: > On 2/12/11 3:30 PM, Andrej Mitrovic wrote: >> What linker does GDC use on Windows? And has anyone had any success >> with using it on Windows? > > IIRC, it emits COFF and uses the ld from MinGW to link. > > David > That's nice to know. I'll give GDC a spin and see how it's working out.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 12.02.2011 16:32, Rainer Schuetze wrote: Dmitry Olshansky wrote: Ok, bumping this up with the latest news from UniLink developers: Ok, we release it's as D extension in next release. Best regards, UniLink That's just plain awesome ;) yeah, it would be great to be able to link against anything else in the windows world. I just tried unilink on a small program compiled with dmd-2.051 and it worked alright. Surprisingly, the executable is less than half the size of the optlink generated file. Comparing the map files, it does not seem to reference less symbols (the corrupted map files written by optlink do not allow perfect comparison), so maybe there is a rather large alignment used by optlink? Same things here, as to the executable size it might be some smart technology they plan to sell ;) Unfortunately, unilink does not support the debug information emitted by dmd: UniLink v1.07 [beta] (build 1.19) Warning: CV(1)-style debug-info not supported Warning: Linked modules don't contain source-level debug information Yeah, that spoils the party... BTW: The authors seem to plan to make unilink a commercial product. Here's a quote from the help file: "If current version of UniLink is beta (all other versions are commercial and can't be used w/o license), keep in mind, any beta will "yaff" after ~1.5 month of expired." I've seen that "yaff" :) Merely a message in console that states that your beta linker is out of date, functionality not crippled. More interestingly I haven't seen any commercial versions yet.. -- Dmitry Olshansky
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Andrej Mitrovic wrote: Great, from one closed-source linker to another. Making optlink open source won't make any difference. Few are skilled at asm anymore, and likely none of them would want to work on optlink for free.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On 2/12/11, Walter Bright wrote: > Andrej Mitrovic wrote: >> Great, from one closed-source linker to another. > > Making optlink open source won't make any difference. Few are skilled at asm > anymore, and likely none of them would want to work on optlink for free. > Ok, but what about your upcoming C version? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that we even have a linker! But it's kind of sad when one of the most active D developers quits because of linker issues.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
> Making optlink open source won't make any difference. Few are skilled at > asm anymore, and likely none of them would want to work on optlink for > free. That's true. But the real problem is not optlink. Optlink is a very good linker. The problem is OMF. 11 years ago OMF was a good choice. But not anymore. I know you are a competent (probably very competent) compiler writer. You modified D on linux, so it produce ELF. How much time would that take to modify DMD so it produce COFF ? Given all the bad publicity OMF gives to D, it should be viewed as a good choice. There are many (not much), but there are open source linkers. Of course ld is not as fast as optlink, but it's good. And there is a faster version made by the project Ultimate++ IDE. Going to COFF would have a lot of advantages for everybody and for D. Do you agree ?
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Andrej Mitrovic Wrote: > On 2/12/11, Walter Bright wrote: > > Andrej Mitrovic wrote: > >> Great, from one closed-source linker to another. > > > > Making optlink open source won't make any difference. Few are skilled at asm > > anymore, and likely none of them would want to work on optlink for free. > > > > Ok, but what about your upcoming C version? > > Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that we even have a linker! But it's > kind of sad when one of the most active D developers quits because of > linker issues. We should rename Optlink to Vuvulink, it's the vuvuzela of D's world. We can't seriously use D with any commercial technologies since the code isn't binary compatible. This is getting ridiculous. 12 years of fail. We could even pay to get a proper linker. But how much would it cost? Around $20 - $50. That's too much. We could outsource our whole software development at that price and focus on profits.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Akakima wrote: Making optlink open source won't make any difference. Few are skilled at asm anymore, and likely none of them would want to work on optlink for free. That's true. But the real problem is not optlink. Optlink is a very good linker. The problem is OMF. 11 years ago OMF was a good choice. But not anymore. I know you are a competent (probably very competent) compiler writer. You modified D on linux, so it produce ELF. How much time would that take to modify DMD so it produce COFF ? Given all the bad publicity OMF gives to D, it should be viewed as a good choice. There are many (not much), but there are open source linkers. Of course ld is not as fast as optlink, but it's good. And there is a faster version made by the project Ultimate++ IDE. Going to COFF would have a lot of advantages for everybody and for D. Do you agree ? Changing the object module format is not sufficient. The symbolic debug info would have to be changed (and Microsoft's is undocumented) and then there's the dependency on Microsoft's C runtime library if linking with VC generated object files.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Walter: > Changing the object module format is not sufficient. The symbolic debug info > would have to be changed (and Microsoft's is undocumented) and then there's > the > dependency on Microsoft's C runtime library if linking with VC generated > object > files. What about linking with MinGW (GCC 4.5+) object files? Bye, bearophile
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
On Saturday 12 February 2011 17:09:36 Walter Bright wrote: > Akakima wrote: > >> Making optlink open source won't make any difference. Few are skilled at > >> asm anymore, and likely none of them would want to work on optlink for > >> free. > > > > That's true. But the real problem is not optlink. Optlink is a very good > > linker. > > > > The problem is OMF. 11 years ago OMF was a good choice. But not anymore. > > > > I know you are a competent (probably very competent) compiler writer. You > > modified D on linux, so it produce ELF. How much time would that take to > > modify DMD so it produce COFF ? Given all the bad publicity OMF gives to > > D, it should be viewed as a good choice. > > > > There are many (not much), but there are open source linkers. Of course > > ld is not as fast as optlink, but it's good. And there is a faster > > version made by the project Ultimate++ IDE. > > > > Going to COFF would have a lot of advantages for everybody and for D. > > > > Do you agree ? > > Changing the object module format is not sufficient. The symbolic debug > info would have to be changed (and Microsoft's is undocumented) and then > there's the dependency on Microsoft's C runtime library if linking with VC > generated object files. That's a problem for some code and pretty much an absolute necessity for other code. Any project that I'd do at work would _have_ to use Microsoft's runtime library. In the long run, we really do need a solution which is compatible with Microsoft's compiler. Without that, there are a lot of programmers who just won't be able to use D in any project which would be using C or C++ code, and not being able to use any C or C++ code in D can be a major problem - especially if you're trying to use D with an existing code base. So, I really don't know what the best way to handle all of this is, and I really don't know all that much about linkers, but the fact that you can't link D code with C code generated by Microsoft's compiler is crippling for Windows development. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
> > Changing the object module format is not sufficient. The symbolic debug > info would have to be changed (and Microsoft's is undocumented) and then > there's the dependency on Microsoft's C runtime library if linking with VC > generated object files. I found some doc there: http://pierrelib.pagesperso-orange.fr/exec_formats/index.html Microsoft Symbol and Type Information By TIS / Microsoft. Entry added 12/28/2004. Keywords: ms, symbol, type, info File: MS_Symbol_Type_v1.0.pdf « This document describes Microsoft Symbol and Type Information, a debugging information format fromMicrosoft Corporation for the 32-bit Windows environment. » There is also some doc on the MSDN CD that comes with Visual C++ 6.0.
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Akakima wrote: Changing the object module format is not sufficient. The symbolic debug info would have to be changed (and Microsoft's is undocumented) and then there's the dependency on Microsoft's C runtime library if linking with VC generated object files. I found some doc there: http://pierrelib.pagesperso-orange.fr/exec_formats/index.html Microsoft Symbol and Type Information By TIS / Microsoft. Entry added 12/28/2004. Keywords: ms, symbol, type, info File: MS_Symbol_Type_v1.0.pdf « This document describes Microsoft Symbol and Type Information, a debugging information format fromMicrosoft Corporation for the 32-bit Windows environment. » That document describes the Codeview symbol debug format, which Microsoft abandoned 15 years ago in favor of a proprietary format. Dmd generates that older format :-)
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Walter Bright wrote: > Akakima wrote: >>> Changing the object module format is not sufficient. The symbolic debug >>> info would have to be changed (and Microsoft's is undocumented) and then >>> there's the dependency on Microsoft's C runtime library if linking with >>> VC generated object files. >> >> I found some doc there: >> >> http://pierrelib.pagesperso-orange.fr/exec_formats/index.html >> >> Microsoft Symbol and Type Information >> By TIS / Microsoft. Entry added 12/28/2004. >> Keywords: ms, symbol, type, info >> File: MS_Symbol_Type_v1.0.pdf >> « This document describes Microsoft Symbol and Type Information, a >> debugging information format fromMicrosoft Corporation for the 32-bit >> Windows environment. » > > > That document describes the Codeview symbol debug format, which Microsoft > abandoned 15 years ago in favor of a proprietary format. > > Dmd generates that older format :-) Are you going to do Elf? With optlink in D? (Does that even make sense?)
Re: Unilink - alternative linker for win32/64, DMD OMF extensions?
Lutger Blijdestijn wrote: Walter Bright wrote: Akakima wrote: Changing the object module format is not sufficient. The symbolic debug info would have to be changed (and Microsoft's is undocumented) and then there's the dependency on Microsoft's C runtime library if linking with VC generated object files. I found some doc there: http://pierrelib.pagesperso-orange.fr/exec_formats/index.html Microsoft Symbol and Type Information By TIS / Microsoft. Entry added 12/28/2004. Keywords: ms, symbol, type, info File: MS_Symbol_Type_v1.0.pdf « This document describes Microsoft Symbol and Type Information, a debugging information format fromMicrosoft Corporation for the 32-bit Windows environment. » That document describes the Codeview symbol debug format, which Microsoft abandoned 15 years ago in favor of a proprietary format. Dmd generates that older format :-) Are you going to do Elf? With optlink in D? (Does that even make sense?) Elf is not a symbolic debug format. It is possible to use Codeview with Elf. In any case, such decisions will have to revolve around the availability of things like debuggers.
