Contributing the Unifile utility for merging Mot or Hex files.

Contributing the Unifile utility for merging Mot or Hex files.

[Prafulla Thakare]

Hi,

We have released a utility, named as Unifile, that merges two or more
Motorola format files (commonly known as Mot file or S-Record file) 
or Intel format files (commonly known as Hex file) to generate a 
single Motorola format file (S-Record / Mot file) or Intel format file.

This utility is useful for the users using multicore CPU wherein 
application programming for individual CPU core is independent of 
other CPU cores. We have successfully tested this utility for dual 
core CPU.

We would like to contribute this utility (along with sources) as a 
part of the GNU binary utilities. We propose the following two 
options for contributing the Unifile utility to FSF:

1. Add this utility to GNU binary utilities as a standalone utility.
User will need to invoke it separately and merge the input 
(Mot or Hex) files. 

2. Develop patch to integrate this utility with GNU linker. 
An option can be added to the linker to merge the input (Mot or Hex) 
files.

We would like to know which of the two is a better option and will be 
well received by the users of the GNU binary utilities.

Thanks in advance for your feedback/suggestions.

Regards,
Prafulla Thakare
KPIT Cummins Infosystems Ltd,
Pune (INDIA)
www.kpitgnutools.com 

Re: Contributing the Unifile utility for merging Mot or Hex files.

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Prafulla,

> We have released a utility, named as Unifile, that merges two or more
> Motorola format files (commonly known as Mot file or S-Record file) 
> or Intel format files (commonly known as Hex file) to generate a 
> single Motorola format file (S-Record / Mot file) or Intel format file.

> We would like to contribute this utility (along with sources) as a 
> part of the GNU binary utilities. We propose the following two 
> options for contributing the Unifile utility to FSF:
> 
> 1. Add this utility to GNU binary utilities as a standalone utility.
> User will need to invoke it separately and merge the input 
> (Mot or Hex) files. 
> 
> 2. Develop patch to integrate this utility with GNU linker. 
> An option can be added to the linker to merge the input (Mot or Hex) 
> files.

I think that option 2 is the one that I prefer.  It makes sense to me 
that the linker should be able to treat IHEX or S-REC files as inputs 
and combine them into a single IHEX/S-REC format output.

Cheers
   Nick

RE: Contributing the Unifile utility for merging Mot or Hex files.

[Prafulla Thakare]

Nick Clifton wrote:
> I think that option 2 is the one that I prefer.

Thank you for your feedback. 
We will now develop a patch to integrate the 'unifile' utility with
linker.

Regards,
Prafulla