--enable-auto-import extension

[Charles Wilson]

First: Woo Hoo!  Thanks for looking in to this problem Egor!!

egor duda wrote:


> Clean way to handle such situations (other than convincing
> Microsoft to change a loader) is to add some runtime support for
> non-zero-offset imports.
> 
> The idea is to add a vector of "cygwin internal pseudo-relocation"
> entries to executable data section and to perform relocations of
> appropriate data manually at program startup.


But why is this cygwin-specific?  It seems that it's equally applicable 
to mingw (e.g. native) DLLs, just as mingw's gcc can use the current 
auto-import feature, even though MSVC can't understand or use it...


> Attached is a proof-of-concept patch to ld and simple testcase.


Tested, and works:

$ ./crtest
ptr=1125, addend=8
reloc target=401125
ptr=112b, addend=4
reloc target=40112b
data=111 222 333


> If this idea is worthwhile, i think i should add more things to the
> patch:


Absolutely.  Of course, it would still need to be *rigorously* tested to 
insure that
   a) DLLs built this way could still be linked-to by "regular" code 
that doesn't violate the current limitations.  (e.g. suppose I as the 
cygintl-2.dll maintainer built the next cygintl-2.dll using this spiffy 
new ld.exe; so now, cygintl-2.dll has the extra reloc table.

Q1: will existing code that relied on the OLD cygintl-2.dll (without the 
additional reloc table) and does NOT try to access data-with-addend, 
STILL work if I drop in the new DLL?  [e.g. runtime backwards compat]

Q2: Could I relink old code (that again, does NOT try to access 
data-with-addend) to the new DLL using an OLD ld.exe?  (e.g. an enduser 
of cygintl-2.dll who hasn't updated their binutils)  [e.g linktime 
backwards compat]

Q3: Is the new DLL usable by windows tools, provided a suitable import 
library is generated? (I'm thinking here of mingw folks who build DLLs 
and implibs for use by others with MSVC -- granted, MSVC can't use 
auto-import at all, much less your extention.  But the same linker will 
be used even to build "regular" DLLs...we can't break that.)


> 1. Make cygreloc generation conditional via --enable-cygwin-reloc or
> something like that.


At first, yes, it does need to be conditional -- and default to OFF, 
probably...

And, it should probably not be "cygwin" specific.  --enable-data-reloc?


> 2. If linker creates at least one cygreloc entry, it should emit
> reference to some external symbol, say 'cygwin_process_cygreloc' so
> that if object contains non-empty cygreloc vector it'd be
> guaranteed that it can't be linked with runtime without cygreloc
> support.


Okay, that takes care of "new style" exe accidentally linking at runtime 
to "old style" DLL.  Still, that leaves compatibility questions about
   existing "old style" EXE ---> "new style" DLL
   linking a "new" old style EXE using the old linker ---> against a 
"new style" DLL

This chunk of code (in pe-dll.c)

+      if (pe_dll_extra_pe_debug)
+        printf ("creating cygreloc entry for %s (addend=%d)\n",
+               fixup_name, addend);
+      b = make_cygreloc_fixup_entry (name, fixup_name, addend, output_bfd);
+      add_bfd_to_link (b, b->filename, &link_info);

doesn't seem to get called in your example -- but it should, if I 
understand correctly...What's the deal?

Anyway, because I can't see any "creating cygreloc entry..." debug 
messages, I'm not quite sure exactly where the cygreloc vector GOES -- 
into the client .o, or into the DLL.  I had assumed the DLL, but your 
point #2 above confuses that issue for me...
(cygreloc --> addend_reloc?)


> 3. Make relocations a bit more flexible by adding type and size
> (possible 64-bit support?) 


I dunno -- that's a tall order.  This addend-offset problem affects 
structs and arrays -- which come in all SORTS of specific types with 
different field orders and sizes.  Also, what about recursive offsets?

bob = a[2].foo.bar[3].baz ?

Granted, fixing 64 bit types (long long), simple arrays, and simple 
structs will go a LONG way to solving the problem in practical terms -- 
but until EVERY case is covered, we still need to detect the failure 
cases and warn at link time (not runtime).

> Comments?

Nice work so far, but it'll need LOTS of testing and verification, as 
you can well imagine.  Unfortunately, my time will be VERY VERY limited 
over the next six weeks to help with this sort of thing -- or for any 
cygwin-related stuff.  Thesis Defense approaches...

--Chuck