the outer-loop approach made sense when we were also processing
DT_JMPREL, which might be in REL or RELA form, to avoid major code
duplication. commit 09db855b35 removed
processing of DT_JMPREL, and in the remaining two tables, the format
(REL or RELA) is known by the name of the table. simply writing two
versions of the loop results in smaller and simpler code.
the DT_JMPREL relocation table necessarily consists entirely of
JMP_SLOT (REL_PLT in internal nomenclature) relocations, which are
symbolic; they cannot be resolved in stage 1, so there is no point in
processing them.
this overhaul further reduces the amount of arch-specific code needed
by the dynamic linker and removes a number of assumptions, including:
- that symbolic function references inside libc are bound at link time
via the linker option -Bsymbolic-functions.
- that libc functions used by the dynamic linker do not require
access to data symbols.
- that static/internal function calls and data accesses can be made
without performing any relocations, or that arch-specific startup
code handled any such relocations needed.
removing these assumptions paves the way for allowing libc.so itself
to be built with stack protector (among other things), and is achieved
by a three-stage bootstrap process:
1. relative relocations are processed with a flat function.
2. symbolic relocations are processed with no external calls/data.
3. main program and dependency libs are processed with a
fully-functional libc/ldso.
reduction in arch-specific code is achived through the following:
- crt_arch.h, used for generating crt1.o, now provides the entry point
for the dynamic linker too.
- asm is no longer responsible for skipping the beginning of argv[]
when ldso is invoked as a command.
- the functionality previously provided by __reloc_self for heavily
GOT-dependent RISC archs is now the arch-agnostic stage-1.
- arch-specific relocation type codes are mapped directly as macros
rather than via an inline translation function/switch statement.
Rich Felker