Re: [RFC] Add __initbss section

[Franck Bui-Huu <vagabon.xyz@gmail.com>]

Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Oct 2007, Franck Bui-Huu wrote:
> 
>> Well, since .init.bss is declared as follow:
>>
>>      .init.bss (NOLOAD) : {
>>              ...
>>      }
>>
>> data should not take any space in the image...
> 
>  The above only marks it as unloadable (cf. e.g. debugging information).  
> It is still there.
> 

So it seems there is no way from a linker script to specify that a
section has the nobits type, is it ?

After spending some fun time trying several different configurations
with gcc and ld, I noticed that gcc makes a section with @nobits
attribute if the section name starts with .bss.*

So calling .bss.init instead of .init.bss makes gcc do the right
thing. Here is a bit of tlbex.s:

                .word   0
                .section        .bss.init,"aw",@nobits
                .align  2
                .type   tlb_handler, @object
                .size   tlb_handler, 512
        tlb_handler:
                .space  512
                .align  2
                .type   labels, @object
                .size   labels, 1024
        labels:
                .space  1024


Another test I did is to put .init.bss (not .bss.init) section right
before .bss section in order to have only one segment to load. And it
makes magically ld do the right thing. I must admit that I don't
understand why, and the lack of documentation doesn't help...

Unfortunately I don't know if we can rely on one of these
behaviours. IOW if they're going to work with all supported versions
of gcc/ld.

Anyway, I'll resubmit a new patchset for futher discussion.

                Franck