Relocating Machine Instructions by Currying

Relocation adjusts machine instructions to account for changes in the locations either of the instructions themselves or of external symbols to which they refer. Standard linkers implement a finite set of relocation transformations, suitable for a single architecture. These transformations are eIlumerated, named, and engraved in a machine-dependent objcct-file format, and linkers must recognize them by name. These names and their associated transformations are an unnecessary source of machine-dependence. The New Jersey Machine-Code Toolkit is an application generator. It helps programmers create applications that manipulate machine code, in-cluding linkers. Guided by a short instruction-set specificatioD, the toolkit generates the bit-manipulating code. Instructions are described by con-structors, which denote functions mapping lists of operands to instruc-tions ' binary representations. Any operand can be designated as ''relocat