============ Introduction ============ BLINK is a linker written as a replacement for ALINK. It is fully ALINK compatible accepting all command line options and WITH files. BLINK supports many additional options not found in ALINK. BLINK has been produce through the combined efforts of The Software Distillery currently comprised of: Dave Baker Ed Burnette Stan Chow Jay Denebeim Gordon Keener Jack Rouse John Toebes Doug Walker It may be freely distributed provided: 1) No charge is made for its use or distribution 2) This manual is distributed along with the executable module 3) No modifications are made to the executable module Failure to comply with these rules will simply work to convince people that there is no value in producing good freely redistributable software. The latest version of BLINK and our other projects are available from our BBS: Deep Thought (919) 471-6436 Address all correspondence to: John Toebes The Software Distillery 235 Trillingham Lane Cary NC 27511 Let us know what you do and don't like about it. There are several enhancements that WILL be out in the next major release: * Overlay support * Complete XREF of library references * Additional hunk coalescing features * More finely tuned code =========== Using BLINK =========== Command Line Syntax. -------------------- BLINK is driven by keyword parameters in any order indicating the action to be performed. The basic syntax is: BLINK [FROM][ROOT] files [TO file][WITH file][VER file] [LIBRARY | LIB files][MAP file map_options][XREF file][options] where: file means a single file files means zero or more file names separated by a comma, plus sign or space and the following keywords are recognized: FROM files - specifies the object files that are the primary input to the linker. These object files will always be copied to the root of the object module. You must specify at least one object file for the root. If it appears as the first option to BLINK then the FROM keyword is optional and may be omitted. ROOT is an acceptable synonym for FROM. FROM may be used more than once with the files for each FROM adding to the list of files to be linked. TO file - specifies target object module to create. If omitted it defaults to the same name as the first object module listed on a FROM option with its .o suffix removed. WITH file - specifies a file containing BLINK command options to be processed for this link. More than one WITH file may be specified as may WITH files contain WITH statements. The contents of all with files will be treated as if they were specified on the BLINK command line. VER file - a destination file to contain all linker output messages. If you do not specify it then all messages go to the terminal. LIBRARY files - specifies the files to be scanned as libraries. Only referenced segments from library files will be included in the final object module. LIB is a valid synonym for LIBRARY. XREF file - specifies a file to which the cross reference information will be written. If not specified and a cross reference is requested with the MAP option, the cross reference listing will appear as part of the map file. FASTER - a do-nothing option that is included only for ALINK compatibility. VERBOSE - causes BLINK to print out the names of each file as it processes it. NODEBUG - supresses any HUNK_DEBUG, symbol table information or hunk names in the final object file. This is equivalent to the object file that would be produced if STRIPA were run on the final object file SMALLDATA - causes all DATA and BSS sections to be Coalesced into a single hunk. This is useful for combining all data hunks from a program into a single hunk - decreasing load time but potentially producing larger hunks that are difficult to scatter load SMALLCODE - causes all CODE hunks to be Coalesced into a single hunk. WIDTH n - sets the maximum line length for the map and cross reference listings. This is useful when sending the output to a divice that has different line length requirements. If not specified it defaults to 80. MAP file options - specifies a file to which a map is to be written. options controls which parts of the map will be written. See the MAP section for more information. OVERLAY - specifies the start of an overlay tree terminated by a line consisting of a single pound sign '#'. See the OVERLAY section for more information. DEFINE - allows for definition or re-definition of a symbol Useful for stubbing yet unwritten routines, resolving unresolved references and link time patches to your code. Possible combinations are: DEFINE symbola = symbolb where you want symbola to be resolved to symbolb and symbolb has been previously defined in your code. DEFINE symbola = some constant where the constant is either a decimal or hexadecimal number. If hexadecimal number is input it must be preceded with a $ sign. ie. DEFINE symbola = $dead or DEFINE symbola = 1234. Example Command Line Usage: --------------------------- BLINK ========== WITH Files ========== Although BLINK is completely compatible with ALINK WITH files the order and format used to input options is quite position independant. FROM files and LIBRARY options can span several lines with or without line continuation characters "+". I hope the examples below reflect this remarkable flex- ability. Gee a tool that is user-friendly. We must be doing something wrong! Example WITH files ------------------ from c.o vt100.o init.o window.o xmodem.o remote.o kermit.o script.o lib lib:lc.lib lib:amiga.lib verbose smallcode smalldata to vt100 or yet another way FROM c.o vt100.o init.o window.o xmdem.o remote.o kermit.o script.o LIBRARY lib:lc.lib lib:lc.lib MAP ram:vt100.map TO df1:vt100/vt100 SMALLCODE SMALLDATA VERBOSE or better yet, a standard sort of header WITH file that you can append the specifics to the end of the file and save some typing every time you need to create a WITH file. LIBRARY ram:lc.lib ram:amiga.lib SMALLDATA SMALLCODE MAP ram:mymap VERBOSE XREF ram:myxref FROM c.o vt100.0 init.o window.o xmodem.o remote.o kermit.o script.o In the above exmaple you will notice that no TO file was specified. BLINK will atomatically create a TO file for you in the current directory with the name of the first module in you FROM list no including the startup routine in this case c.o. So in the above example the executable will be called VT100 without the .o extension. Nice touch EH! ======== Overlays ======== Not supported in this release ========= Map Files ========= MAP are H S X F O PLAIN FANCY MAP [[filename],option,option,...] filename map output file option letter of report to produce (see below) WIDTH n columns allowed in map file (default 80) INDENT n columns to indent on a line (included in width) (default 0) default 0 HEIGHT n lines on a page in map file (0 indicates no pagenation) (default 55) HWIDTH n width of hunk names (default 8) FWIDTH n width of file names (default 16) PWIDTH n width of program unit names (default 8) SWIDTH n width of symbol names (default 8) FANCY flag to allow printer control characters in the map file (this is the default condition) PLAIN turns off the FANCY option BUFSIZE map: map has sub keywords, they are: h - MapHunk s - MapSym x - MapXref f - MapFile o - MapOvly additionaly it will accept other keywords that can have parameters: width - (1-132) def 80 height - (1-255) def 55 Hwidth - (1-255) def 8 (hunk name width) Fwidth - (1-255) def 16 (file name width) Swidth - (1-255) def 25 (Symbol width) indent - (1-255) def 0 (line indentation) ==================== BLINK Error messages ==================== 1 Parser failure. 2 Pass 1 failure. 4 Coalesce failure. 5 Map failure. 3 Pass 2 failure. 6 Symbol Initialization failure. 200 Out of memory!! 300 Read error on file '%s' 301 Write error on file '%s' 400 *** Break: Blink terminating. 425 Cannot find library %s 426 Cannot find object %s 444 Hunk_Symbol has bad %d symbol %s 445 Invalid HUNK_SYMBOL %s 446 Invalid symbol type %d for %s 447 %s is a load file 448 Invalid hunk #%d 449 No hunk_end seen for %s 501 Invalid Reloc 8 or 16 reference 502 Distance for Reloc16 > 32768 503 Distance for Reloc8 > 128 504 Distance for Data Reloc16 > 32768 505 Distance for Data Reloc8 > 128 506 Can't locate resolved symbol %s 507 Unknown Symbol type %d 508 Symbol type %d unimplemented 509 Unknown hunk type %d in Pass2 600 Invalid command '%s' 601 %s option specified more than once 602 Unable to open map file '%s' 603 %s is not a valid number 604 with file is not readable 605 Cannot open with file '%s' 606 Unable to open output file '%s' 607 No FROM/ROOT files specified 999 Unknown internal error <<