Hi.

Som time ago (years?) there was something posted that in a
funny way described the process of an image activatiuon.
It was written as a dialoge between the EXE and the activator.

Does anyone know what I'm referring to?
Anyone having a link?

Jan-Erik.

Jan-Erik,

how about this ?

https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/Rr394zhu6SQ

Volker.

On Fri, 31 Mar 2023 15:05:32 +0200, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:

> Hi.
>
> Som time ago (years?) there was something posted that in a funny way
> described the process of an image activatiuon.
> It was written as a dialoge between the EXE and the activator.
>
> Does anyone know what I'm referring to?
> Anyone having a link?

A Day in the Life of the Image Activator

as recounted to Stanley Rabinowitz on 7-Jan-1985

MONITOR: Good morning sir! I am your command language
interpreter today. That was a flawlessly executed LOGIN.
How may I help you today?

USER: Good morning to you too computer.
I think today I want to do some data retrieving.

MONITOR: A wonderful choice sir! A finer day it couldn't be
for looking over your data. How will you have it today?
Sunny side up? Once over lightly?

USER: I think I'll use DATATRIEVE. Would you kindly activate
DATATRIEVE please?

MONITOR: Most certainly sir! An excellent choice!
One moment while I image-activate it.

MONITOR: Oh, image activator: would you please image-activate
that DTR32 image that I notice on SYS$SYSTEM? My user
desires to play with it a bit now.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: No problem. Shouldn't take but a jiff.

<pause>

MONITOR: Any problems?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: No sir, not a one. It's just that I'm surprised to
see that DTR32 is composed of 21 image sections.
Quite an unusual number for a VMS utility. Most
images only have 3 or 4 sections. This one really
sets a record! But no problem - I just \love/ to map
in all these sections. After all - that's my primary
purpose in life.

<pause>

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Well, that should do it. They're all mapped in.

MONITOR: Then we can start her up now?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Well not quite. I just noticed that this image
invokes some shared images. Oh well, I guess I'll
have to go image-activate them too. At least we'll
only have to activate those images that this program
really needs.

MONITOR: How many shared images does it require?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Oh mi gosh! It references 15 shared images!
Another record! I can't believe it!
Oh well, here goes...

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: The first one it wants is DTRSHR. That should be
an easy one.

<pause>

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Oh no! Not another one. That's two in one day!
DTRSHR.EXE uses 20 image sections!

MONITOR: Have you enough room for them all?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: No sweat. This is a virtual memory machine. And this disk
I/O is real fast. I'll have it in a minute.

<pause>

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: There. Now on to the other shared images. Next
comes CDDSHR. Guess it's important that we share
all this data.

MONITOR: Yup. What next?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Now we'll need a database manager, so I guess
we'll just have to go off and image-activate DBMSHR,
the database management system.

MONITOR: Sounds reasonable.

USER: How's it coming there computer?

MONITOR: No sweat. It'll be just another moment.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: And now we'll activate RDBSHR.

MONITOR: But I thought you just brought in your database manager?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Yes, but this one is the \relational/ database system.
It's a whole different ballgame.

MONITOR: Well, hurry it along.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Okay. Next comes RDMSHR, the relational database
manager.

MONITOR: But how does that differ from RDBSHR?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: I don't know. I just activate 'em. They tell me
to image-act and I image-act.

MONITOR: Well, I hope that's it for database managers.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Not quite. There's still RDBBSHR. This company
specializes in its excellent collection of managers.

MONITOR: Great! I guess that's it then.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Not on your life! Do you think our user merely
wants to look at relationships? What if he wants
to sort his data?

MONITOR: Oh.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Didn't think of that did you? I guess we'll just
have to go image-activate SORTSHR.

MONITOR: I guess so.

USER: But I don't plan to do any sorting today.
I just wanted to prepare a short report.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Sorry. SORTSHR comes with this image.
It's a free option.

MONITOR: What next?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Hmm. Looks like a request to bring in COBRTL,
the COBOL run-time library.

MONITOR: Why would they want that? Is DATATRIEVE written in
COBOL?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: No, but the COBOL run time library has many precious
gems of useful routines that one might wish to call...
Guess, I'll just go image-activate it now.

MONITOR: Good thing you don't also need the FORTRAN run-time
library too.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Now you've done it! You've given me the evil eye.
Either that or I just got up out of the wrong side
of the bed this morning. Here look at this: this
image is also requesting FORRTL and LIBRTL.
OH! and now look: It wants MTHRTL too!

MONITOR: You never know when our user might want to do some
computation. He might need to compute some arc
cosines you know. Better safe than sorry.

USER: What's taking so long?

MONITOR: (still trying to be pleasant) We're almost there now.
Shant be much longer. After all, you want a
user-friendly system don't you?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: That's right. I guess that's why I've been
instructed to image activate LBRSHR. You never
know when the user might request some on-line help
so we've got to have our librarian ready to answer
his questions.

MONITOR: That's nice. I'm sure our user will appreciate that.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: And oh yeah - we'll need SCRSHR too, the screen
package. Only the best on \this/ system. Can't
let our user make do without fancy graphics!

MONITOR: A wonderful thought. But will SCRSHR be enough?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: No. you're right of course. We'll also have to
bring in EDTSHR. SCRSHR is only the low level
graphics. EDTSHR will really let our user edit
his data in style.

USER: But I wasn't planning to change the data today.
Just one simple report...

MONITOR: Keep your shirt on. When this image finally comes
up, it will really blow your mind.

MONITOR: But image activator, will EDTSHR really be enough?
Isn't the big thing these days forms?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Right you are monitor, baby. Guess we'll need
FDVSHR, the forms management system. Won't take
but another moment. (sigh) I think that was the last
one.

MONITOR: Great! Then I can report back that we're ready to go?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: One second. Let me make one last check...

MONITOR: Never pays to be hasty.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Ah nuts! Some of these new images that we just
activated are requesting further attention.
It looks like they too want to activate other
shared images.

MONITOR: Don't we have enough images? That's been 16 already!

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Well, security is an important issue too.
Wouldn't want our user to lose any data.
Look here: CDDSHR wants us to bring in SECURESHR.
Guess I'll just have to image-activate another one...

USER: (getting impatient) What's taking so long?

MONITOR: We're putting all the pieces together for you now.
Shouldn't be much longer.

USER: Putting them together? Doesn't it come all assembled?

MONITOR: Not to worry. There's no extra charge for installation.

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: There. And now what? Look at this: CDDSHR also wants
us to activate LIBRTL, the common run-time library.

MONITOR: But didn't you already activate LIBRTL?

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Right on baby! Let me just look around.

<pause>

IMAGE ACTIVATOR: Oh there it is. We have it mapped into memory already.
I guess I'll just throw this request away.

Den 2023-03-31 kl. 17:11, skrev Bob Eager:
> On Fri, 31 Mar 2023 15:05:32 +0200, Jan-Erik Söderholm wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>>
>> Som time ago (years?) there was something posted that in a funny way
>> described the process of an image activatiuon.
>> It was written as a dialoge between the EXE and the activator.
>>
>> Does anyone know what I'm referring to?
>> Anyone having a link?
>
> A Day in the Life of the Image Activator
>
> as recounted to Stanley Rabinowitz on 7-Jan-1985
....
....
....

Thanks Volker and Bob!

Jan-Erik.

> >
> > A Day in the Life of the Image Activator
> >
> > as recounted to Stanley Rabinowitz on 7-Jan-1985

And since the VAX days, the image activator is even busier with filling in tons of relocations into the Itanium "short"
section, sharable image symbol-vectors, as well as the references to all the shareable images.

For "fun", I did a ANAL/IMAGE/SEGMENT=DYNAMIC on an XMACRO cross-compiler in my directory. There are 57237
image relocations just for XMACRO alone.

$ search analyze.x DT_NEEDED,DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT,DT_VMS_IMG_RELA_CNT
0000000080000110 0221BF10 00000110 DT_NEEDED 0000000000000001 String table index for image LBRSHR
0000000080000130 0221BF30 00000130 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000009 Count of fixup entries
0000000080000160 0221BF60 00000160 DT_NEEDED 0000000000000008 String table index for image CMA$TIS_SHR
0000000080000180 0221BF80 00000180 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000002 Count of fixup entries
00000000800001B0 0221BFB0 000001B0 DT_NEEDED 0000000000000014 String table index for image CRFSHR
00000000800001D0 0221BFD0 000001D0 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000002 Count of fixup entries
0000000080000200 0221C000 00000200 DT_NEEDED 000000000000001B String table index for image LIBRTL
0000000080000220 0221C020 00000220 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000032 Count of fixup entries
0000000080000250 0221C050 00000250 DT_NEEDED 0000000000000022 String table index for image CXXL$LANGRTL
0000000080000270 0221C070 00000270 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 00000000000001CF Count of fixup entries
00000000800002A0 0221C0A0 000002A0 DT_NEEDED 000000000000002F String table index for image CXXL$RWRTL
00000000800002C0 0221C0C0 000002C0 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000035 Count of fixup entries
00000000800002F0 0221C0F0 000002F0 DT_NEEDED 000000000000003A String table index for image DECC$SHR
0000000080000310 0221C110 00000310 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 000000000000006F Count of fixup entries
0000000080000340 0221C140 00000340 DT_NEEDED 0000000000000043 String table index for image DPML$SHR
0000000080000360 0221C160 00000360 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000065 Count of fixup entries
0000000080000390 0221C190 00000390 DT_NEEDED 000000000000004C String table index for image LIBOTS
00000000800003B0 0221C1B0 000003B0 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000027 Count of fixup entries
00000000800003E0 0221C1E0 000003E0 DT_NEEDED 0000000000000053 String table index for image PTHREAD$RTL
0000000080000400 0221C200 00000400 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000012 Count of fixup entries
0000000080000430 0221C230 00000430 DT_NEEDED 000000000000005F String table index for image SYS$PUBLIC_VECTORS
0000000080000450 0221C250 00000450 DT_VMS_FIXUP_RELA_CNT 0000000000000025 Count of fixup entries
0000000080000480 0221C280 00000480 DT_VMS_IMG_RELA_CNT 000000000000DF95 Count of image relocation entries

On Mon, 2023-04-03 at 07:07 -0700, John Reagan wrote:
> For "fun", I did a ANAL/IMAGE/SEGMENT=DYNAMIC on an XMACRO cross-
> compiler in my directory.  There are 57237
> image relocations just for XMACRO alone. 

I can see scope for optimising these relocations, make it lean and mean
by arranging it all so it loads instantly.
--
Tactical Nuclear Kittens

On Monday, April 3, 2023 at 4:07:03 PM UTC+2, John Reagan wrote:
> > >
> > > A Day in the Life of the Image Activator
> > >
> > > as recounted to Stanley Rabinowitz on 7-Jan-1985
> And since the VAX days, the image activator is even busier with filling in tons of relocations into the Itanium "short"
> section, sharable image symbol-vectors, as well as the references to all the shareable images.
>
> For "fun", I did a ANAL/IMAGE/SEGMENT=DYNAMIC on an XMACRO cross-compiler in my directory. There are 57237
> image relocations just for XMACRO alone.
> ...
And they are applied either once or never. XMACRO is a main program. The ELF linker by default generates image relocations, even for main image. Just in case they need to be relocated. Main images usually are not relocated, except they are installed /RESIDENT. And that happens usually only once at system startup.

Shareable images are always relocated, except you run them as main images.