Re: PATCH: PR ld/5522: Section contents partially overwritten with zero

["H.J. Lu" <hjl at lucon dot org>]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 09:29:56PM +1030, Alan Modra wrote:
> > >2007-12-27  H.J. Lu  <hongjiu.lu@intel.com>
> > >
> > >	PR ld/5522
> > >	* elflink.c (elf_link_input_bfd): Don't write out a section if
> > >	its output section is marked with SEC_NEVER_LOAD.
> 
> ld.info gives an example of NOLOAD output sections saying "The
> contents of the section will appear in the linker output file as
> usual".  NOLOAD sets SEC_NEVER_LOAD on the output section, therefore
> not writing out the section here is wrong.  I think we are suffering
> bit rot.  Probably partly my fault..
> 
> >From what I can see of the history (I can't access private Cygnus CVS,
> so can't see before 1999), it appears that SEC_NEVER_LOAD was
> invented for COFF to mirror STYP_NOLOAD.  I'm inclined to think it
> should remain that way.  ie. Only used in COFF code or in the generic
> linker code to hanlde NOLOAD.  ELF doesn't have an external section
> flag similar to STYP_NOLOAD so SEC_NEVER_LOAD should not appear
> anywhere in ELF specific code.  SEC_LOAD is sufficient.  Does anyone
> have any enlightening comments?
> 

bfd/section.c has

.  {* An instruction to the linker to not output the section
.     even if it has information which would normally be written.  *}
.#define SEC_NEVER_LOAD 0x200

I don't know which one is correct.


H.J.