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(as.info)Ld Sections

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Linker Sections
===============

   `ld' deals with just four kinds of sections, summarized below.

*named sections*
*text section*
*data section*
     These sections hold your program.  `as' and `ld' treat them as
     separate but equal sections.  Anything you can say of one section
     is true another.  When the program is running, however, it is
     customary for the text section to be unalterable.  The text
     section is often shared among processes: it contains instructions,
     constants and the like.  The data section of a running program is
     usually alterable: for example, C variables would be stored in the
     data section.

*bss section*
     This section contains zeroed bytes when your program begins
     running.  It is used to hold uninitialized variables or common
     storage.  The length of each partial program's bss section is
     important, but because it starts out containing zeroed bytes there
     is no need to store explicit zero bytes in the object file.  The
     bss section was invented to eliminate those explicit zeros from
     object files.

*absolute section*
     Address 0 of this section is always "relocated" to runtime address
     0.  This is useful if you want to refer to an address that `ld'
     must not change when relocating.  In this sense we speak of
     absolute addresses being "unrelocatable": they do not change
     during relocation.

*undefined section*
     This "section" is a catch-all for address references to objects
     not in the preceding sections.

   An idealized example of three relocatable sections follows.  The
example uses the traditional section names `.text' and `.data'.  Memory
addresses are on the horizontal axis.

                           +-----+----+--+
     partial program # 1:  |ttttt|dddd|00|
                           +-----+----+--+
     
                           text   data bss
                           seg.   seg. seg.
     
                           +---+---+---+
     partial program # 2:  |TTT|DDD|000|
                           +---+---+---+
     
                           +--+---+-----+--+----+---+-----+~~
     linked program:       |  |TTT|ttttt|  |dddd|DDD|00000|
                           +--+---+-----+--+----+---+-----+~~
     
         addresses:        0 ...