MIPS/Linux assembly issue

[adnan iqbal <adnan.iqbal@seecs.edu.pk>]

Hi all,

I am trying to compile/link/execute following very simple program in debian/MIPS (Tried on Qemu and Octeon). I am getting errors while executing the program. gdb also shows a strange behavior showing program entrypoint somehere in data segement. Any help getting this sorted out shall be appreciated.

Regards
Adnan

Commands used to compile/link
----------------------------------------------------
$ as hello.s -o hello.o
$ld hello.o -o hello
$ ./hello


The code
---------------
      .data
str:
        .asciiz "hello world\n"
        .text
        .globl __start

__start:
        jal f2
        la $4,str
        li $2,4
        syscall

        ## terminate program via _exit () system call
        li $2, 10
        syscall
f2:
        add $8,$8,$0
        jr $31