| 
							- <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
 - <html>
 - <!-- This file documents the GNU linker LD
 - (GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain 10-2020-q4-major)
 - version 2.35.1.
 - 
 - Copyright (C) 1991-2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 - 
 - Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
 - under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
 - or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
 - with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
 - Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the
 - section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License". -->
 - <!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.5, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ -->
 - <head>
 - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
 - <title>Input Section Basics (LD)</title>
 - 
 - <meta name="description" content="Input Section Basics (LD)">
 - <meta name="keywords" content="Input Section Basics (LD)">
 - <meta name="resource-type" content="document">
 - <meta name="distribution" content="global">
 - <meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo">
 - <link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top">
 - <link href="LD-Index.html#LD-Index" rel="index" title="LD Index">
 - <link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
 - <link href="Input-Section.html#Input-Section" rel="up" title="Input Section">
 - <link href="Input-Section-Wildcards.html#Input-Section-Wildcards" rel="next" title="Input Section Wildcards">
 - <link href="Input-Section.html#Input-Section" rel="prev" title="Input Section">
 - <style type="text/css">
 - <!--
 - a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none}
 - blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em}
 - blockquote.smallindentedblock {margin-right: 0em; font-size: smaller}
 - blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller}
 - div.display {margin-left: 3.2em}
 - div.example {margin-left: 3.2em}
 - div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
 - div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em}
 - div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em}
 - div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
 - kbd {font-style: oblique}
 - pre.display {font-family: inherit}
 - pre.format {font-family: inherit}
 - pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif}
 - pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif}
 - pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
 - pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller}
 - pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
 - pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller}
 - span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap}
 - span.roman {font-family: initial; font-weight: normal}
 - span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal}
 - ul.no-bullet {list-style: none}
 - -->
 - </style>
 - 
 - 
 - </head>
 - 
 - <body lang="en">
 - <a name="Input-Section-Basics"></a>
 - <div class="header">
 - <p>
 - Next: <a href="Input-Section-Wildcards.html#Input-Section-Wildcards" accesskey="n" rel="next">Input Section Wildcards</a>, Up: <a href="Input-Section.html#Input-Section" accesskey="u" rel="up">Input Section</a>   [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="LD-Index.html#LD-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
 - </div>
 - <hr>
 - <a name="Input-Section-Basics-1"></a>
 - <h4 class="subsubsection">3.6.4.1 Input Section Basics</h4>
 - <a name="index-input-section-basics"></a>
 - <p>An input section description consists of a file name optionally followed
 - by a list of section names in parentheses.
 - </p>
 - <p>The file name and the section name may be wildcard patterns, which we
 - describe further below (see <a href="Input-Section-Wildcards.html#Input-Section-Wildcards">Input Section Wildcards</a>).
 - </p>
 - <p>The most common input section description is to include all input
 - sections with a particular name in the output section.  For example, to
 - include all input ‘<samp>.text</samp>’ sections, you would write:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">*(.text)
 - </pre></div>
 - <p>Here the ‘<samp>*</samp>’ is a wildcard which matches any file name.  To exclude a list
 - <a name="index-EXCLUDE_005fFILE"></a>
 - of files from matching the file name wildcard, EXCLUDE_FILE may be used to
 - match all files except the ones specified in the EXCLUDE_FILE list.  For
 - example:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">EXCLUDE_FILE (*crtend.o *otherfile.o) *(.ctors)
 - </pre></div>
 - <p>will cause all .ctors sections from all files except <samp>crtend.o</samp>
 - and <samp>otherfile.o</samp> to be included.  The EXCLUDE_FILE can also be
 - placed inside the section list, for example:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">*(EXCLUDE_FILE (*crtend.o *otherfile.o) .ctors)
 - </pre></div>
 - <p>The result of this is identically to the previous example.  Supporting
 - two syntaxes for EXCLUDE_FILE is useful if the section list contains
 - more than one section, as described below.
 - </p>
 - <p>There are two ways to include more than one section:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">*(.text .rdata)
 - *(.text) *(.rdata)
 - </pre></div>
 - <p>The difference between these is the order in which the ‘<samp>.text</samp>’ and
 - ‘<samp>.rdata</samp>’ input sections will appear in the output section.  In the
 - first example, they will be intermingled, appearing in the same order as
 - they are found in the linker input.  In the second example, all
 - ‘<samp>.text</samp>’ input sections will appear first, followed by all
 - ‘<samp>.rdata</samp>’ input sections.
 - </p>
 - <p>When using EXCLUDE_FILE with more than one section, if the exclusion
 - is within the section list then the exclusion only applies to the
 - immediately following section, for example:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">*(EXCLUDE_FILE (*somefile.o) .text .rdata)
 - </pre></div>
 - <p>will cause all ‘<samp>.text</samp>’ sections from all files except
 - <samp>somefile.o</samp> to be included, while all ‘<samp>.rdata</samp>’ sections
 - from all files, including <samp>somefile.o</samp>, will be included.  To
 - exclude the ‘<samp>.rdata</samp>’ sections from <samp>somefile.o</samp> the example
 - could be modified to:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">*(EXCLUDE_FILE (*somefile.o) .text EXCLUDE_FILE (*somefile.o) .rdata)
 - </pre></div>
 - <p>Alternatively, placing the EXCLUDE_FILE outside of the section list,
 - before the input file selection, will cause the exclusion to apply for
 - all sections.  Thus the previous example can be rewritten as:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">EXCLUDE_FILE (*somefile.o) *(.text .rdata)
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>You can specify a file name to include sections from a particular file.
 - You would do this if one or more of your files contain special data that
 - needs to be at a particular location in memory.  For example:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">data.o(.data)
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>To refine the sections that are included based on the section flags
 - of an input section, INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS may be used.
 - </p>
 - <p>Here is a simple example for using Section header flags for ELF sections:
 - </p>
 - <div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">SECTIONS {
 -   .text : { INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS (SHF_MERGE & SHF_STRINGS) *(.text) }
 -   .text2 :  { INPUT_SECTION_FLAGS (!SHF_WRITE) *(.text) }
 - }
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>In this example, the output section ‘<samp>.text</samp>’ will be comprised of any
 - input section matching the name *(.text) whose section header flags
 - <code>SHF_MERGE</code> and <code>SHF_STRINGS</code> are set.  The output section
 - ‘<samp>.text2</samp>’ will be comprised of any input section matching the name *(.text)
 - whose section header flag <code>SHF_WRITE</code> is clear.
 - </p>
 - <p>You can also specify files within archives by writing a pattern
 - matching the archive, a colon, then the pattern matching the file,
 - with no whitespace around the colon.
 - </p>
 - <dl compact="compact">
 - <dt>‘<samp>archive:file</samp>’</dt>
 - <dd><p>matches file within archive
 - </p></dd>
 - <dt>‘<samp>archive:</samp>’</dt>
 - <dd><p>matches the whole archive
 - </p></dd>
 - <dt>‘<samp>:file</samp>’</dt>
 - <dd><p>matches file but not one in an archive
 - </p></dd>
 - </dl>
 - 
 - <p>Either one or both of ‘<samp>archive</samp>’ and ‘<samp>file</samp>’ can contain shell
 - wildcards.  On DOS based file systems, the linker will assume that a
 - single letter followed by a colon is a drive specifier, so
 - ‘<samp>c:myfile.o</samp>’ is a simple file specification, not ‘<samp>myfile.o</samp>’
 - within an archive called ‘<samp>c</samp>’.  ‘<samp>archive:file</samp>’ filespecs may
 - also be used within an <code>EXCLUDE_FILE</code> list, but may not appear in
 - other linker script contexts.  For instance, you cannot extract a file
 - from an archive by using ‘<samp>archive:file</samp>’ in an <code>INPUT</code>
 - command.
 - </p>
 - <p>If you use a file name without a list of sections, then all sections in
 - the input file will be included in the output section.  This is not
 - commonly done, but it may by useful on occasion.  For example:
 - </p><div class="smallexample">
 - <pre class="smallexample">data.o
 - </pre></div>
 - 
 - <p>When you use a file name which is not an ‘<samp>archive:file</samp>’ specifier
 - and does not contain any wild card
 - characters, the linker will first see if you also specified the file
 - name on the linker command line or in an <code>INPUT</code> command.  If you
 - did not, the linker will attempt to open the file as an input file, as
 - though it appeared on the command line.  Note that this differs from an
 - <code>INPUT</code> command, because the linker will not search for the file in
 - the archive search path.
 - </p>
 - <hr>
 - <div class="header">
 - <p>
 - Next: <a href="Input-Section-Wildcards.html#Input-Section-Wildcards" accesskey="n" rel="next">Input Section Wildcards</a>, Up: <a href="Input-Section.html#Input-Section" accesskey="u" rel="up">Input Section</a>   [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="LD-Index.html#LD-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
 - </div>
 - 
 - 
 - 
 - </body>
 - </html>
 
 
  |