objformat (Re: cvs commit: src/usr.bin Makefile src/usr.bin/objformat Makefile objformat.1 objformat.c)

On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 10:26:41PM +0000, Peter Wemm wrote:
> peter       2007-01-25 22:26:41 UTC
> 
>   FreeBSD src repository
> 
>   Modified files:
>     usr.bin              Makefile 
>   Removed files:
>     usr.bin/objformat    Makefile objformat.1 objformat.c 
>   Log:
>   Retire objformat(1) as threatened in 2002.
>   
>   Laughed-at-by:  kris

This was well past expiry date, as evidenced by the previous commit
log to objformat.c:
---
date: 2002/09/17 01:49:00;  author: peter;  state: Exp;  lines: +3 -48
Initiate deorbit burn for the i386-only a.out related support.  Moves are
under way to move the remnants of the a.out toolchain to ports.  As the
comment in src/Makefile said, this stuff is deprecated and one should not
expect this to remain beyond 4.0-REL.  It has already lasted WAY beyond
that.
---

However it does catch us in ports with our pants down a bit:

bsd.port.mk:PORTOBJFORMAT!=         ${TEST} -x /usr/bin/objformat && /usr/bin/objformat || ${ECHO_CMD} aout

i.e. it defaults to aout :-O

If you're in the habit of aggressively removing binaries from your
system (i.e. you delete /usr/binobjformat) or you install 7.0 on a
fresh system, you might need to add PORTOBJFORMAT?=elf in your
/etc/make.conf until we can get it fixed in ports (workaround is easy,
but digging out all the old a.out legacy crap will take more work,
because it also extends into various patchfiles etc).

Unfortunately this bogus form of the test seems to have also migrated
upstream into various vendor packages (grep -r objformat
/usr/src/{contrib,crypto} to see what I mean), so they may need to be
fixed too.

Kris