Question

I copy the machine code of a function on Windows.

For example:

void func()
{
    printf("hello");
}

In the above case, I would copy func()‘s hex code segment data and printf()‘s hex code data plus other dependencies and data and relinked it on a differnt machine running linux, would it be possible to run the code on a linux machine if properly relinked?

And if so would it there be a licensing problem? (Is it legal?)

P.S. The question regards to a distributed system question.

Answer 1

This is a pretty vague/unanswerable question, but this would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. You have a number of difficulties which would need addressed. Namely, the executable format (ELF on Linux, vs PE on windows), the calling conventions between systems/compilers, etc.

The biggest issue I can think of, is that the file handling between Linux and Windows is extremely different. Your best bet would not be to copy printf(), but to redirect that call to the windows implementation, because after all of the library function work, the low-level write to the console is very different.