aditya (aditya.ps@ap.sony.com) writes: > I have a doubt w.r.t. Linux on mips. > > in mips there is a instruction jal which jumps across 256 MB > boundry. but this is a restriction as shared text (libraries) and > private text (program's text) should be located within 256 MB > boundry. Is it true ?? In the usual Linux address map it isn't true: library code might easily fail to be in the same 256Mbyte 'chunk' of virtual memory. Linux/MIPS applications implement calls between modules (and for relocatable libraries, calls inside modules too) with an indirection through a table of pointers - the "global access table" or GOT. We normally think of this as a way of providing suitably position-independent code... There's a fair description of this in my book "See MIPS Run" under the heading "Sharing Library Code in the MIPS ABI" - Chapter 10 or so. -- Dominic Sweetman, Algorithmics Ltd The Fruit Farm, Ely Road, Chittering, CAMBS CB5 9PH, ENGLAND phone: +44 1223 706200 / fax: +44 1223 706250 / direct: +44 1223 706205 http://www.algor.co.uk
