An object file is divided into sections containing different types of data. In the most common case, there are three sections: the text section, which holds instructions and read-only data; the data section, which holds initialized writable data; and the bss section, which holds uninitialized data. Some systems have other kinds of sections.
varasm.cc provides several well-known sections, such as
text_section, data_section and bss_section.
The normal way of controlling a foo_section variable
is to define the associated FOO_SECTION_ASM_OP macro,
as described below. The macros are only read once, when varasm.cc
initializes itself, so their values must be run-time constants.
They may however depend on command-line flags.
Note: Some run-time files, such crtstuff.c, also make
use of the FOO_SECTION_ASM_OP macros, and expect them
to be string literals.
Some assemblers require a different string to be written every time a
section is selected. If your assembler falls into this category, you
should define the TARGET_ASM_INIT_SECTIONS hook and use
get_unnamed_section to set up the sections.
You must always create a text_section, either by defining
TEXT_SECTION_ASM_OP or by initializing text_section
in TARGET_ASM_INIT_SECTIONS. The same is true of
data_section and DATA_SECTION_ASM_OP. If you do not
create a distinct readonly_data_section, the default is to
reuse text_section.
All the other varasm.cc sections are optional, and are null if the target does not provide them.
A C expression whose value is a string, including spacing, containing the
assembler operation that should precede instructions and read-only data.
Normally "\t.text" is right.
If defined, a C string constant for the name of the section containing most frequently executed functions of the program. If not defined, GCC will provide a default definition if the target supports named sections.
If defined, a C string constant for the name of the section containing unlikely executed functions in the program.
A C expression whose value is a string, including spacing, containing the
assembler operation to identify the following data as writable initialized
data. Normally "\t.data" is right.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string, including spacing, containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as initialized, writable small data.
A C expression whose value is a string, including spacing, containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as read-only initialized data.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string, including spacing,
containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as
uninitialized global data. If not defined, and
ASM_OUTPUT_ALIGNED_BSS not defined,
uninitialized global data will be output in the data section if
-fno-common is passed, otherwise ASM_OUTPUT_COMMON will be
used.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string, including spacing, containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as uninitialized, writable small data.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string containing the
assembler operation to identify the following data as thread-local
common data. The default is ".tls_common".
If defined, a C expression whose value is a character constant
containing the flag used to mark a section as a TLS section. The
default is 'T'.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string, including spacing,
containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as
initialization code. If not defined, GCC will assume such a section does
not exist. This section has no corresponding init_section
variable; it is used entirely in runtime code.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string, including spacing,
containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as
finalization code. If not defined, GCC will assume such a section does
not exist. This section has no corresponding fini_section
variable; it is used entirely in runtime code.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string, including spacing,
containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as
part of the .init_array (or equivalent) section. If not
defined, GCC will assume such a section does not exist. Do not define
both this macro and INIT_SECTION_ASM_OP.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a string, including spacing,
containing the assembler operation to identify the following data as
part of the .fini_array (or equivalent) section. If not
defined, GCC will assume such a section does not exist. Do not define
both this macro and FINI_SECTION_ASM_OP.
If defined, a C expression whose value is a character constant
containing the flag used to mark a machine-dependent section. This
corresponds to the SECTION_MACH_DEP section flag.
If defined, an ASM statement that switches to a different section
via section_op, calls function, and switches back to
the text section. This is used in crtstuff.c if
INIT_SECTION_ASM_OP or FINI_SECTION_ASM_OP to calls
to initialization and finalization functions from the init and fini
sections. By default, this macro uses a simple function call. Some
ports need hand-crafted assembly code to avoid dependencies on
registers initialized in the function prologue or to ensure that
constant pools don’t end up too far way in the text section.
If defined, a string which names the section into which small
variables defined in crtstuff and libgcc should go. This is useful
when the target has options for optimizing access to small data, and
you want the crtstuff and libgcc routines to be conservative in what
they expect of your application yet liberal in what your application
expects. For example, for targets with a .sdata section (like
MIPS), you could compile crtstuff with -G 0 so that it doesn’t
require small data support from your application, but use this macro
to put small data into .sdata so that your application can
access these variables whether it uses small data or not.
If defined, an ASM statement that aligns a code section to some
arbitrary boundary. This is used to force all fragments of the
.init and .fini sections to have to same alignment
and thus prevent the linker from having to add any padding.
Define this macro to be an expression with a nonzero value if jump
tables (for tablejump insns) should be output in the text
section, along with the assembler instructions. Otherwise, the
readonly data section is used.
This macro is irrelevant if there is no separate readonly data section.
void TARGET_ASM_INIT_SECTIONS (void) ¶Define this hook if you need to do something special to set up the varasm.cc sections, or if your target has some special sections of its own that you need to create.
GCC calls this hook after processing the command line, but before writing any assembly code, and before calling any of the section-returning hooks described below.
int TARGET_ASM_RELOC_RW_MASK (void) ¶Return a mask describing how relocations should be treated when selecting sections. Bit 1 should be set if global relocations should be placed in a read-write section; bit 0 should be set if local relocations should be placed in a read-write section.
The default version of this function returns 3 when -fpic is in effect, and 0 otherwise. The hook is typically redefined when the target cannot support (some kinds of) dynamic relocations in read-only sections even in executables.
bool TARGET_ASM_GENERATE_PIC_ADDR_DIFF_VEC (void) ¶Return true to generate ADDR_DIF_VEC table or false to generate ADDR_VEC table for jumps in case of -fPIC.
The default version of this function returns true if flag_pic equals true and false otherwise
section * TARGET_ASM_SELECT_SECTION (tree exp, int reloc, unsigned HOST_WIDE_INT align) ¶Return the section into which exp should be placed. You can
assume that exp is either a VAR_DECL node or a constant of
some sort. reloc indicates whether the initial value of exp
requires link-time relocations. Bit 0 is set when variable contains
local relocations only, while bit 1 is set for global relocations.
align is the constant alignment in bits.
The default version of this function takes care of putting read-only
variables in readonly_data_section.
See also USE_SELECT_SECTION_FOR_FUNCTIONS.
Define this macro if you wish TARGET_ASM_SELECT_SECTION to be called
for FUNCTION_DECLs as well as for variables and constants.
In the case of a FUNCTION_DECL, reloc will be zero if the
function has been determined to be likely to be called, and nonzero if
it is unlikely to be called.
void TARGET_ASM_UNIQUE_SECTION (tree decl, int reloc) ¶Build up a unique section name, expressed as a STRING_CST node,
and assign it to ‘DECL_SECTION_NAME (decl)’.
As with TARGET_ASM_SELECT_SECTION, reloc indicates whether
the initial value of exp requires link-time relocations.
The default version of this function appends the symbol name to the
ELF section name that would normally be used for the symbol. For
example, the function foo would be placed in .text.foo.
Whatever the actual target object format, this is often good enough.
section * TARGET_ASM_FUNCTION_RODATA_SECTION (tree decl, bool relocatable) ¶Return the readonly data or reloc readonly data section associated with
‘DECL_SECTION_NAME (decl)’. relocatable selects the latter
over the former.
The default version of this function selects .gnu.linkonce.r.name if
the function’s section is .gnu.linkonce.t.name, .rodata.name
or .data.rel.ro.name if function is in .text.name, and
the normal readonly-data or reloc readonly data section otherwise.
const char * TARGET_ASM_MERGEABLE_RODATA_PREFIX ¶Usually, the compiler uses the prefix ".rodata" to construct
section names for mergeable constant data. Define this macro to override
the string if a different section name should be used.
section * TARGET_ASM_TM_CLONE_TABLE_SECTION (void) ¶Return the section that should be used for transactional memory clone tables.
section * TARGET_ASM_SELECT_RTX_SECTION (machine_mode mode, rtx x, unsigned HOST_WIDE_INT align) ¶Return the section into which a constant x, of mode mode,
should be placed. You can assume that x is some kind of
constant in RTL. The argument mode is redundant except in the
case of a const_int rtx. align is the constant alignment
in bits.
The default version of this function takes care of putting symbolic
constants in flag_pic mode in data_section and everything
else in readonly_data_section.
tree TARGET_MANGLE_DECL_ASSEMBLER_NAME (tree decl, tree id) ¶Define this hook if you need to postprocess the assembler name generated
by target-independent code. The id provided to this hook will be
the computed name (e.g., the macro DECL_NAME of the decl in C,
or the mangled name of the decl in C++). The return value of the
hook is an IDENTIFIER_NODE for the appropriate mangled name on
your target system. The default implementation of this hook just
returns the id provided.
void TARGET_ENCODE_SECTION_INFO (tree decl, rtx rtl, int new_decl_p) ¶Define this hook if references to a symbol or a constant must be treated differently depending on something about the variable or function named by the symbol (such as what section it is in).
The hook is executed immediately after rtl has been created for
decl, which may be a variable or function declaration or
an entry in the constant pool. In either case, rtl is the
rtl in question. Do not use DECL_RTL (decl)
in this hook; that field may not have been initialized yet.
In the case of a constant, it is safe to assume that the rtl is
a mem whose address is a symbol_ref. Most decls
will also have this form, but that is not guaranteed. Global
register variables, for instance, will have a reg for their
rtl. (Normally the right thing to do with such unusual rtl is
leave it alone.)
The new_decl_p argument will be true if this is the first time
that TARGET_ENCODE_SECTION_INFO has been invoked on this decl. It will
be false for subsequent invocations, which will happen for duplicate
declarations. Whether or not anything must be done for the duplicate
declaration depends on whether the hook examines DECL_ATTRIBUTES.
new_decl_p is always true when the hook is called for a constant.
The usual thing for this hook to do is to record flags in the
symbol_ref, using SYMBOL_REF_FLAG or SYMBOL_REF_FLAGS.
Historically, the name string was modified if it was necessary to
encode more than one bit of information, but this practice is now
discouraged; use SYMBOL_REF_FLAGS.
The default definition of this hook, default_encode_section_info
in varasm.cc, sets a number of commonly-useful bits in
SYMBOL_REF_FLAGS. Check whether the default does what you need
before overriding it.
const char * TARGET_STRIP_NAME_ENCODING (const char *name) ¶Decode name and return the real name part, sans
the characters that TARGET_ENCODE_SECTION_INFO
may have added.
bool TARGET_IN_SMALL_DATA_P (const_tree exp) ¶Returns true if exp should be placed into a “small data” section. The default version of this hook always returns false.
bool TARGET_HAVE_SRODATA_SECTION ¶Contains the value true if the target places read-only “small data” into a separate section. The default value is false.
bool TARGET_PROFILE_BEFORE_PROLOGUE (void) ¶It returns true if target wants profile code emitted before prologue.
The default version of this hook use the target macro
PROFILE_BEFORE_PROLOGUE.
bool TARGET_BINDS_LOCAL_P (const_tree exp) ¶Returns true if exp names an object for which name resolution rules must resolve to the current “module” (dynamic shared library or executable image).
The default version of this hook implements the name resolution rules for ELF, which has a looser model of global name binding than other currently supported object file formats.
bool TARGET_HAVE_TLS ¶Contains the value true if the target supports thread-local storage. The default value is false.