12 Jun
2023
12 Jun
'23
8:28 p.m.
On 12 Jun 2023, at 21:22, Dan Cross
<crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hmm. The comment at the top of `crt0.s` from 2nd Edition says, "C
runtime startoff", which seems pretty clear. Whether that has changed
over time is, of course, another matter (like how GCC changed to "GNU
Compiler Collection").
Possibly - in this file
http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/lib/csu/README?rev=1.6&content-…,
the CSU and related files are referred to as the compiler runtime. But startoff is
appropriate - because the file was usually included in the binary at the beginning to
initialise stuff.
These days ELF formats and similar have specific sections for initing and terminating
binaries - although I the crt name lives on with start and end:
servalan: {482} ls -la /usr/lib/crt*
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 4328 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crt0.o
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 2648 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crtbegin.o
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 2880 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crtbeginS.o
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 10 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crtbeginT.o -> crtbegin.o
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 1264 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crtend.o
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 8 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crtendS.o -> crtend.o
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 1488 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crti.o
-r--r--r-- 1 root wheel 1152 Jan 14 18:18 /usr/lib/crtn.o
I thought it was pretty well known that it stands for, "Block Started
(by) Symbol”?
I wrote a paper on a.out a year or so ago and concluded that I could not find an adequate
answer - so avoided the issue with a non-commital footnote.
C