nasm and linker

[firr]

(im not to much experienced in asembly and nasm)

do nasm not provide linker? must i use the mingw one?

[Frank Kotler]

firr wrote:
> (im not to much experienced in asembly and nasm)
>
> do nasm not provide linker? must i use the mingw one?

No, Nasm does not provide a linker (it would have to provide several).
ASSuming you're using Windows. ld from MinGW would work. Jeremy Gordon's
GoLink is popular with Windows Nasm users these days. MS's linker should
work, as well. There are others...

Best,
Frank

[firr]

allright mingw ld linker works
why golink is popular? first time i hear about it

[Frank Kotler]

firr wrote:

...

> allright mingw ld linker works
> why golink is popular? first time i hear about it

I don't know why GoLink is popular. You'd have to ask a Windows user. (I
don't/won't use Windows - personal preference, no "engineering" reason).

In view of your questions about the executables being stuffed full of
zeros for alignment reasons, perhaps I should mention these macros which
will allow Nasm to create a Windows executable with no linker at all -
just using "-f bin" output format and stuffing in the executable header.
Despite the fact that it's got my name in it, I do not recommend this
method. I "think" it still works.
http://home.myfairpoint.net/fbkotler/nagoa20120202.zip

Best,
Frank

[Rod Pemberton]

On Mon, 28 Sep 2015 13:49:23 -0400, Frank Kotler <fbko...@nospicedham.myfairpoint.net> wrote:

> firr wrote:

>> (im not to much experienced in asembly and nasm)
>>
>> do nasm not provide linker? must i use the mingw one?
>
> No, Nasm does not provide a linker (it would have to provide several).

Yes, it does, but just not in the current packages.

Frank, did you forgot about NASM's RDOFF?

"ldrdf"

"This tool is a version of unix 'ld' (or DOS 'link') for use with RDOFF
files. It is capable of linking RDOFF objects, and libraries produced
with the 'rdlib' utility discussed below."

The utilities are rdfdump, ldrdf, rdx, rdflib, rdf2bin, and rdf2com.
They're available in the nasm-0.98.39.zip package.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm/files/nasm%20sources/0.98.39/

Unfortunately, NASM has moved to www.nasm.us, but hasn't archived
the older files from Sourceforge.

Also, unfortunately, RDOFF is a proprietary format. So, it's only
useful in limited situations, like someone just starting out.


Rod Pemberton


--
Just how many texting and calendar apps does humanity need?
Just how many food articles from neurotic millenials do we need?

[Frank Kotler]

Rod Pemberton wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Sep 2015 13:49:23 -0400, Frank Kotler
> <fbko...@nospicedham.myfairpoint.net> wrote:
>
>> firr wrote:
>
>>> (im not to much experienced in asembly and nasm)
>>>
>>> do nasm not provide linker? must i use the mingw one?
>>
>> No, Nasm does not provide a linker (it would have to provide several).
>
> Yes, it does, but just not in the current packages.
>
> Frank, did you forgot about NASM's RDOFF?

Yes, I did.

> "ldrdf"
>
> "This tool is a version of unix 'ld' (or DOS 'link') for use with RDOFF
> files. It is capable of linking RDOFF objects, and libraries produced
> with the 'rdlib' utility discussed below."
>
> The utilities are rdfdump, ldrdf, rdx, rdflib, rdf2bin, and rdf2com.
> They're available in the nasm-0.98.39.zip package.
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm/files/nasm%20sources/0.98.39/
>
> Unfortunately, NASM has moved to www.nasm.us, but hasn't archived
> the older files from Sourceforge.

Probably not the executables, that's true. "make everything" and/or
"make install_everything" (from the top directory) should produce the
"rdoff" utilities.

> Also, unfortunately, RDOFF is a proprietary format. So, it's only
> useful in limited situations, like someone just starting out.

Never used any of it, so I have no idea how useful it might be. Thanks
for the reminder, Rod! I stand corrected.

Best,
Frank