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hi all
i have passed the task, memory management stage and i've
written a basic fat12 and floppy driver. i've used flat memory model.
now i want to decide on which executable file format to use for applications. i don't want to use elf or pe. I've considered LX and rdoff (btw i couldn't find Rdoff 2.0 specification. not on google nor on wotsit :-\ ) If you have any suggestions on a format can you please give a link to any kind of specification.

thanks

Why don't you want to use ELF? I'd go for it...

i don't know maybe i can i thought there might be a better format that's why i am asking.

ELF and PE are both fine executable formats for 99% of what you might need. They're both very general-purpose. I believe PE is slightly better, as it has a few more bells and whistles (e.g. resources), and its relocations aren't based on Position-Independent Code, as ELF is. (PIC performs badly on x86 because it takes up one register which, in PE, can be used by the compiler.)

You know, Tim, you're not forced to use PIC (position independent code) with elves. you just *can*, and that's the way Linux dynamic loader works ... but you can for sure write another loader that do not enforce this. Relocation infos are there too :p

You mean you can get the linker to emit a relocatable image with relocations instead of PIC? I never knew that.

To be honest, it's been a struggle getting ld to emit relocatable images even with PE (my relocatable drivers invoke ld three times -- apparently this is the only way of doing it).

there is something like a "-r" or "-i" file that forces it to keep relocation information in the final object file. That's how Clicker modules are built

(though i admit there's no much more bits of elves when i'm done with them ... Maybe i should name my file format 'Obscure Relocatable Code' or something alike :p)