MSC Danger (was Re: Turbo C vs Quick C)

[John Unekis]

In article <304 at wsccs.UUCP> terry at wsccs.UUCP (terry) writes:
>In article <1082 at dutesta.UUCP>, knop at dutesta.UUCP (Peter Knoppers) writes:
>> 
>> Why, oh why don't the .obj files in MSDOS contain some bits telling
>> the linker whether a function in the .obj file expects to be called
>> with a FAR or a NEAR call. This can prevent accidentally linking
>> modules compiled for different models.
...
   The problem is not with the linker, but with the compiler. The code
   which performs a subroutine call is generated at compile time, and it
   either pushes the segment registers on the stack (FAR call) with the 
   offset registers, or it simply pushes the offset registers alone (NEAR
   call). The problem with labelling entry points for the linker is that
   an entry point may be NEAR when placed in the same segment with the 
   calling code by the linker, or FAR when it has to be placed in a 
   separate segment due to code size. Therefore a lot of large model FAR
   subroutine calls are redundant because the code actually fits in one 
   segment (but there are no guarantees). 
   If all this gets too frustrating for words, you could always buy a
   computer with a real processor chip(like the 68000) that doesn't have
   20 year old START-OF-THE-ART problems like segment boundaries.

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My opinions are so good that my employer would like to own them,
but they remain mine alone. {ihnp4 or voder}!wlbr!etn-rad!jru
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