garyb@crpmks.UUCP (Gary Blumenstein) (02/13/90)
Could someone offer a plausible explaination as to why the linker is so much bigger than MASM.EXE? My guess is that the linker needs more workspace than the assembler (but for what?). Another guess is that it must somehow link object code with routines in DOS when programming with interrupts, therefore there might be "libraries" built in to the linker making it larger? Am I totally off base here? Does anybody know? - gb -- Gary M. Blumenstein, UNIX Network Administrator // CIBA-GEIGY Corporation USA ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone (914) 347-4700 7 Skyline Drive, Hawthorne, NY 10532 FAX (914) 347-5687 UUCP ...uunet!philabs!crpmks!garyb
cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn) (02/16/90)
In article <1123@crpmks.UUCP> garyb@crpmks.UUCP (Gary Blumenstein) writes:
$Could someone offer a plausible explaination as to why the linker
$is so much bigger than MASM.EXE? My guess is that the linker needs
$more workspace than the assembler (but for what?). Another guess
$is that it must somehow link object code with routines in DOS when
$programming with interrupts, therefore there might be "libraries"
$built in to the linker making it larger?
I don't know what versions of MASM and LINK you're using ... my
MASM V4.00 is 83165 bytes, and none of my LINKs is bigger than
50531 bytes (V3.55).
A stripped-to-the-bones linker can come in under 10K (check out
Borland's TLINK.EXE from Turbo C 1.0 - it's 9753 bytes); I would
imagine that more recent versions of the DOS linker (which handle
overlays) would have to have the overlay manager built-in, but
even that shouldn't add too much to the size.
--
Stephen M. Dunn cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
<std_disclaimer.h> = "\nI'm only an undergraduate!!!\n";
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