Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/StanHash/lyn

README.md

@@ -1,32 +1,37 @@
-# lyn
+# `lyn`
+
 Aims to bring the functionalities of a proper linker to EA.
 
+(My goal will be to progressively port different EA-outputting tools to object-outputting tools, as well as allowing `lyn` to output directly to binary, so that using EA will eventually become a non-requirement.)
+
 What `lyn` does is it takes a variable number of [ELF object files](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_and_Linkable_Format) plus a bunch of options, and outputs corresponding labeled EA code to stdout (I'll probably make it able to output to file at some point)
 
 See the [FEU Thread](http://feuniverse.us/t/ea-asm-tool-lyn-elf2ea-if-you-will/2986?u=stanh) for a detailed walkthrough and other goodies.
 
 ## Usage
+
 ```
-lyn [-nolink/-linkabs/-linkall] [-longcalls] [-raw] [-printtemp] [-autohook/-nohook] <elf...>
+lyn [-[no]link] [-[no]longcalls] [-[no]temp] [-[no]hook] [-raw] <elf...>
 ```
 
 (parameters, including elf file references, can be arranged in any order)
 
-- `-nolink`/`-linkabs`/`-linkall` defines linking policy. Behavior may conflict when other options are set (other options usually have priority).
-    - `-nolink` prevents any anticipated linking to occur (all relocations will be exposed to EA)
-    - `-linkabs` will only link absolute symbols (ie symbols that cannot simply be represented as labels using EA)
-    - `-linkall` will link everything it can (absolutes, relatives, locals...) (set by default)
-- `-longcalls` will transform any direct BL call (and maybe later other calls/jumps) to a call to a "trampoline", where the target symbol will be represented as absolute.
-- `-raw` will prevent any anticipated computation to occur, exposing the elves as is.
-- `-printtemp` will expose temporary symbols (for now this only includes labels associated with trampolines)
-- `-autohook` will allow automatic hooking into vanilla routines (see above for details). On by default (disable it with `-nohook` or `-raw`)
+- `-[no]link` specifies whether anticipated linking is to occur (elves linking between themselves) (default is on)
+- `-[no]longcalls` specifies whether lyn should transform any relative jump/reference to an absolute one (useful when linking code using `bl`s to symbols out of range) (default is off)
+- `-[no]temp` specifies whether lyn should keep & print *all* local symbols (when off, only the ones needed for relocation are kept) (default is off)
+- `-[no]hook` specifies whether automatic routine replacement hooks should be inserted (this happens when an object-relative symbol and an absolute symbol in two different elves have the same name, then lyn will output a "hook" to where the absolute symbol points to that will jump to the object-relative location) (default is on)
 
 ## Planned features
 
 - Bugfixes (always)
-- Code cleanup (kinda want to have my mini `elf` library to be a bit more clean and such)
+- A Complete rewrite that would imply:
+  - Decoupling the object interface with the event-gerenating part (and then put the object bit into a reusable library (to make writing other object-generating tools))
+  - Decoupling the object interface with the elf-reading bit, allowing me to define other ways of reading objects.
 - Support for more relocations (such as `ARM` relocations (`lyn` currently only supports a handful of `thumb` & `data` ones))
 - Allowing handling not only only read-only allocated sections (`.text`, `.rodata`, etc) but also writable allocated sections (`.data`, `.bss`, etc). Idk how that'd work with EA tho...
-- Maybe support for other output formats? I'm thinking [`json-bpatch`](https://github.com/zahlman/json_bpatch) since zahl himself mentionned being interested, or maybe also the ability to write directly to target binary? (Some would say heresy, but maybe then we'll finally have a proper linker that is fit for our purposes?)
+- Allowing other output formats:
+  - Object files (in which case `lyn`'s role would be to merge/simplify objects rather than "translating" them)
+  - I'm thinking [`json-bpatch`](https://github.com/zahlman/json_bpatch) since zahl himself mentionned being interested.
+  - Direct output to target binary, and allowing some kind of control over how to do that.
 
-**As always, any question or bug report can also be done by contacting me through the [FEU Thread](http://feuniverse.us/t/ea-asm-tool-lyn-elf2ea-if-you-will/2986?u=stanh) or on the [FEU Discord](http://feuniverse.us/t/feu-discord-server/1480?u=stanh).**
+**As always, any question or bug report can also be done by posting in the [FEU Thread](http://feuniverse.us/t/ea-asm-tool-lyn-elf2ea-if-you-will/2986?u=stanh) (or on the [FEU Discord](http://feuniverse.us/t/feu-discord-server/1480?u=stanh) ~~whenever I'll decide to come back over there~~).**