[Oberon] Modula2 vs Oberon IMPORT

[Chris Burrows]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Douglas G. Danforth [mailto:danforth at greenwoodfarm.com] 
> Sent: Saturday, 8 January 2011 5:07 PM
> To: ETH Oberon and related systems
> Subject: Re: [Oberon] Modula2 vs Oberon IMPORT
> 
> The question is whether Modula really only imported the code for the 
> specified procedures
> OR imported the whole module (loaded it into memory) but only made 
> available the
> stated procedures.
> 
> Anyone know?
> 

That all depends on the particular Modula-2 implementation - it is not a
requirement of the language. 

The feature is often referred to as 'smart linking'. I believe JPI TopSpeed
Modula-2 (and JPI TopSpeed C) has this feature and can link just the
referenced procedures. 

Stony Brook M2 (which also implies later versions of Logitech M2) has the
capability of producing a library instead of an object file from a single
source file which leads to the same end-result.

I just checked XDS-Modula2. It has a smart linking option but I couldn't
find anything in the help file that explains what that means. If it does
eliminate unreferenced procedures then there is a good chance that
XDS-Oberon does the same. 

Regards,
Chris Burrows

CFB Software
Astrobe v3.2: ARM Oberon-07 Development System
http://www.astrobe.com