International Business Machines Corporation

William D Wallace

Michael Thomas Wheatley

A multipurpose linkage protocol for procedural calls between compiled program objects permitting a calling program to call a single named entry point in another program at one of several different offsets each corresponding to a different linkage convention. This multipurpose linkage technique permits introduction of new program linkage conventions while retaining linkage compatibility With previously compiled program objects, without compromising either compatibility or the efficiency of the new convention. Every program object supporting this multipurpose linkage protocol may be entered at one of a set of defined offsets from any named entry point. Entry by the calling routine at a particular offset indicates a specific type of call, such as a normal entry by a call to a mainline routine. Thus, a supporting program object can be entered by earlier-compiled objects at the usual +0 Byte offset to handle the call accordingly or it can be entered at a different +16 Byte offset to handle the call according to a newer, more efficient linking procedure. The multipurpose linkage protocol of this invention is suitable for standardization across many high-level languages.

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Toronto, Canada

William D Wallace