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Date: Mon,  7 Mar 2011 10:03:41 -0500
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Subject: Re: [9fans] realemu update
From: Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com>
To: lucio@proxima.alt.za,
	Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
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>> huh? =C2=A0what does libmach (which takes apart executables)
>> have to do with any of this?
>>
> Did I get the wrong impression when I perceived libmach, as released
> with GoLang - cause that's where I looked - seemingly quite capable of
> synthesising as well as analysing binary images?

i think you did.
libmach has routines to read executables and object files (8.out and *.8)
but not to write them.  the programs that write them (8a, 8l, 8c, 8g) all
use custom code, mainly because they have their own internal
representations of the instruction stream, tailored to the kinds of
annotations they need.  8l even has its own reader for *.8 files,
for much the same reason.

russ