hybris/common/gingerbread/README.TXT

   1 Android Dynamic Linker Design Notes
   2 ===================================
   3
   4 Introduction:
   5 -------------
   6
   7 This document provides several notes related to the design of the Android
   8 dynamic linker.
   9
  10
  11 Prelinking:
  12 -----------
  13
  14 System libraries in Android are internally prelinked, which means that
  15 any internal relocations within them are stripped from the corresponding
  16 shared object, in order to reduce size and speed up loading.
  17
  18 Such libraries can only be loaded at the very specific virtual memory address
  19 they have been prelinked to (during the build process). The list of prelinked
  20 system libraries and their corresponding virtual memory address is found in
  21 the file:
  22
  23    build/core/prelink-linux-<arch>.map
  24
  25 It should be updated each time a new system library is added to the
  26 system.
  27
  28 The prelink step happens at build time, and uses the 'soslim' and 'apriori'
  29 tools:
  30
  31   - 'apriori' is the real prelink tool which removes relocations from the
  32     shared object, however, it must be given a list of symbols to remove
  33     from the file.
  34
  35   - 'soslim' is used to find symbols in an executable ELF file
  36     and generate a list that can be passed to 'apriori'.
  37
  38 By default, these tools are only used to remove internal symbols from
  39 libraries, though they have been designed to allow more aggressive
  40 optimizations (e.g. 'global' prelinking and symbol stripping, which
  41 prevent replacing individual system libraries though).
  42
  43 You can disable prelinking at build time by modifying your Android.mk with
  44 a line like:
  45
  46     LOCAL_PRELINK_MODULE := false
  47
  48
  49 Initialization and Termination functions:
  50 -----------------------------------------
  51
  52 The Unix Sys V Binary Interface standard states that an
  53 executable can have the following entries in its .dynamic
  54 section:
  55
  56   DT_INIT
  57       Points to the address of an initialization function
  58       that must be called when the file is loaded.
  59
  60   DT_INIT_ARRAY
  61       Points to an array of function addresses that must be
  62       called, in-order, to perform initialization. Some of
  63       the entries in the array can be 0 or -1, and should
  64       be ignored.
  65
  66       Note: this is generally stored in a .init_array section
  67
  68   DT_INIT_ARRAYSZ
  69       The size of the DT_INITARRAY, if any
  70
  71   DT_FINI
  72       Points to the address of a finalization function which
  73       must be called when the file is unloaded or the process
  74       terminated.
  75
  76   DT_FINI_ARRAY
  77       Same as DT_INITARRAY but for finalizers. Note that the
  78       functions must be called in reverse-order though
  79
  80       Note: this is generally stored in a .fini_array section
  81
  82   DT_FINI_ARRAYSZ
  83       Size of FT_FINIARRAY
  84
  85   DT_PREINIT_ARRAY
  86       An array similar to DT_INIT_ARRAY which must *only* be
  87       present in executables, not shared libraries, which contains
  88       a list of functions that need to be called before any other
  89       initialization function (i.e. DT_INIT and/or DT_INIT_ARRAY)
  90       in the executable or any of its libraries.
  91
  92       Note: this is generally stored in a .preinit_array section
  93
  94   DT_PREINIT_ARRAYSZ
  95       The size of DT_PREINIT_ARRAY
  96
  97 If both a DT_INIT and DT_INITARRAY entry are present, the DT_INIT
  98 function must be called before the DT_INITARRAY functions.
  99
 100 Consequently, the DT_FINIARRAY must be parsed in reverse order before
 101 the DT_FINI function, if both are available.
 102
 103 Note that the implementation of static C++ constructors is very
 104 much processor dependent, and may use different ELF sections.
 105
 106 On the ARM (see "C++ ABI for ARM" document), the static constructors
 107 must be called explicitly from the DT_INIT_ARRAY, and each one of them
 108 shall register a destructor by calling the special __eabi_atexit()
 109 function (provided by the C library). The DT_FINI_ARRAY is not used
 110 by static C++ destructors.
 111
 112 On x86, the lists of constructors and destructors are placed in special
 113 sections named ".ctors" and ".dtors", and the DT_INIT / DT_FINI functions
 114 are in charge of calling them explicitly.
 115
 116
 117 Debugging:
 118 ----------
 119
 120 It is possible to enable debug output in the dynamic linker. To do so,
 121 follow these steps:
 122
 123 1/ Modify the line in Android.mk that says:
 124
 125     LOCAL_CFLAGS += -DLINKER_DEBUG=0
 126
 127   Into the following:
 128
 129     LOCAL_CFLAGS += -DLINKER_DEBUG=1
 130
 131 2/ Force-rebuild the dynamic linker:
 132
 133     cd bionic/linker
 134     mm -B
 135
 136 3/ Rebuild a new system image.
 137
 138 You can increase the verbosity of debug traces by defining the DEBUG
 139 environment variable to a numeric value from 0 to 2. This will only
 140 affect new processes being launched.
 141
 142 By default, traces are sent to logcat, with the "linker" tag. You can
 143 change this to go to stdout instead by setting the definition of
 144 LINKER_DEBUG_TO_LOG to 0 in "linker_debug.h".