Re: A few random thoughts

[Lynn Winebarger <owinebar at free-expression dot org>]

On 17 Nov 1999, Greg Harvey wrote:
> Probably not (though I'm no expert on nlp, so maybe it is possible to
> get the relevent bits out of an article automatically; I wouldn't bet
> on it). I think what this amounts to is having a better search for the
> mailing list archives (and *a* search for the project-list... due to
> limitations of the current hosts, you have to do ALT-F ;); I seem to
> recall that there are a few good indexers available (glimpse springs
> to mind, but I'm sure I remember licensing issues with it). I wonder
> if any have the ability to expand abbreviations, so that gc would be
> found on a garbage collection search. 
> 
   How about one of them FAQ-o-matic thingees?

   Speaking of the project list, could I get my little decompiler project
on there?  The current source is available on my CVS repository,

cvs -d :pserver:guest@se232.math.indiana.edu:/usr/local/cvsroot login
password is freeguest, checkout "decompiler"

    So far, it only translates a (reasonably useful) subset of i386
assembler into an RTL-like language, with a data type scheme instead of 
machine modes.  Right now I'm working out how to do an abstract
interpretation of the code to build the control flow graph (which will
allow for screwey things like jumps between functions, and structuring
non-looping CFG's into tail-recursive letrecs to "de-tailize").
    I'm hoping someone else is interested in working on the C language
stuff, for example, resolving relocs to symbol references, or whatever is
appropriate (BFD doesn't provide a good abstraction layer for treating
relocs as operators, which is what is really needed for some of the
more obscure reloc types to be dealt with cleanly).  Actually, there's
also the problem of dealing with DLL's from the Windows world, because BFD
(at least the version I'm using - 2.9.5) doesn't recognize the DLL
symbols as symbols in its standard calls.  Other sub-projects, like
expanding the i386 assembly -> RTL converters to include floating point
operations, or converting disassemblers for other architectures and
associated conversion to the modified RTL, are also welcome.
   I still need to set up a mailing list for the project.

Lynn