[GSOC2013] Dynamic object file loading

[Chris Johns]

Peng Fan wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> I have encounter a few problems in running "rtld".
> When I use sparc-rtems4.11-run to run rtld, it showes "shell: open input
> /shell-init failed: No such file or directory". I look insight into the
> code, and find that
> there is a fs-root.tar is compiled into "rtld". I do not know how to
> resove this.
>
> when using higher version gcc/g++(4.7.1), rtems-host compilation
> failed,but lower
> verison gcc/g++(4.3) is ok.
>

There are symbols in main.c that understand the tar file. Is something 
wrong with them ?

> In the wiki page, it says "The RTL Host project builds the RTEMS Linker
> (rtems-ld) and the RTL project builds an RTEMS application that runs on
> the i386 and SPARC processors". when using "waf configure
> --prefix=/opt/rtems-4.11/ --rtems-arch=sparc", it works.But when using
> "waf configure --prefix=/opt/rtems-4.11/ --rtems-arch=arm",
>   it shows "could not find any architectures".

Fantastic. I think this is worth a GSoC proposal. :)

> Howerver, the rtl-target code includes such files
>   rtl-mdreloc-arm/m68k/powerpc/i3868/nios2/sparc.c with mips missed, I
> do not know
>   whether these architectures all have been implemented.

I have only tested i386 and sparc and a while ago m68k. The other need 
work to be implemented.

> Hope you can give me some advice on this and Which arch support would you
> suggest me to work on? Thanks.

The project need work to implement more architectures. I am traveling at 
the moment and will be back later in the week. A proposal to work on 
these other archs would be welcome.

Chris