Re: Patch to handle compressed sections

[csilvers@google.com (Craig Silverstein)]

} Space before parenthesis.

Doh, and I was so careful looking for all of those!

} You can use bfd_getb64.

Yeah, we had some debate about that internally.  The issue is that
bfd_getb64 crashes on machines without a 64-bit int type.  That seemed
unnecessarily harsh here, especially since in practice section sizes
will never be longer than 32 bits.

Do you feel that strongly about it?  I'd be more comfortable with code
that didn't make 32-bit assumptions.  I can comment it if that will
help.

} Use the sourceware.org URL instead, please.

Sure thing.

} Do you have write access?  If not, request it using the sourceware
} form - if you have write access to binutils then you already do.

I don't have write access.  I've requested it.

} The other things needed for this feature are, IMO:

Makes sense to me.  Should that be part of this patch, or is it ok to
do it in a followup patch?

} The other thing I very much want is an objcopy option to compress
} DWARF sections, but that's clearly beyond the call of duty.  That
} will let GNU ld users take advantage of this and is probably easier
} than teaching GNU ld to compress .debug_info (though that would be
} nice, too).

Makes sense.  Further plans, if we ever get around to it, include
adding support to readelf, objdump, and addr2line, and adding support
to as to generate compressed sections in .o files (obviously, this
will require a linker that knows how to deal with that, so it's a
longer-term plan).  I'll add objcopy to the list.

craig