On Wed, 30 Oct 2013 11:18:57 -0500, John Gilmore wrote:
>
>... blocks of code that cannot be reached either
>directly or indirectly from other blocks are thus detected, and they
>are deleted. nothing is compiled for them.  ...
>
>It is hard to see how this operation done correctly can impair the
>security of a module because it is hard to see how never executed
>statements can enhance it.
> 
The notable exception is copyright notices/eyecatchers.  There
ensues a battle of wits between programmers who want to embed a
passive string in a module and compiler implementers who regard
it as their duty to detect and delete it.  I used one compiler (Mainsail)
which had an explicit construct , "legalnotice(string)", to cause a
string to appear in its generated code with no further semantic.

Declaring the string an ENTRY point might help, but long ago on
relatively primitive systems I knew of "smart" linkers that deleted
unreferenced [CSECT]s.

-- gil

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