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(bfd.info)Section Input

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Section input
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   When a BFD is opened for reading, the section structures are created
and attached to the BFD.

   Each section has a name which describes the section in the outside
world--for example, `a.out' would contain at least three sections,
called `.text', `.data' and `.bss'.

   Names need not be unique; for example a COFF file may have several
sections named `.data'.

   Sometimes a BFD will contain more than the "natural" number of
sections. A back end may attach other sections containing constructor
data, or an application may add a section (using `bfd_make_section') to
the sections attached to an already open BFD. For example, the linker
creates an extra section `COMMON' for each input file's BFD to hold
information about common storage.

   The raw data is not necessarily read in when the section descriptor
is created. Some targets may leave the data in place until a
`bfd_get_section_contents' call is made. Other back ends may read in
all the data at once.  For example, an S-record file has to be read
once to determine the size of the data. An IEEE-695 file doesn't
contain raw data in sections, but data and relocation expressions
intermixed, so the data area has to be parsed to get out the data and
relocations.