Understanding the Location Counter of GNU Linker Scripts

Question

I'm working on a university project where I'm writing software for an Atmel SAM7S256 microcontroller from the ground up. This is more in depth than other MCUs I've worked with before, as a knowledge of linker scripts and assembly language is necessary this time around.

I've been really scrutinizing example projects for the SAM7S chips in order to fully understand how to start a SAM7/ARM project from scratch. A notable example is Miro Samek's "Building Bare-Metal ARM Systems with GNU" tutorial found here (where the code in this question is from). I've also spent a lot of time reading the linker and assembler documentation from sourceware.org.

I'm quite happy that I understand the following linker script for the most part. There's just one thing involving the location counter that doesn't make sense to me. Below is the linker script provided with the above tutorial:

OUTPUT_FORMAT("elf32-littlearm", "elf32-bigarm", "elf32-littlearm")
OUTPUT_ARCH(arm)
ENTRY(_vectors)

MEMORY {                                       /* memory map of AT91SAM7S64 */
    ROM (rx)  : ORIGIN = 0x00100000, LENGTH = 64k
    RAM (rwx) : ORIGIN = 0x00200000, LENGTH = 16k
}

/* The sizes of the stacks used by the application. NOTE: you need to adjust */
C_STACK_SIZE   = 512;
IRQ_STACK_SIZE = 0;
FIQ_STACK_SIZE = 0;
SVC_STACK_SIZE = 0;
ABT_STACK_SIZE = 0;
UND_STACK_SIZE = 0;

/* The size of the heap used by the application. NOTE: you need to adjust   */
HEAP_SIZE = 0;

SECTIONS {

    .reset : {
        *startup.o (.text)  /* startup code (ARM vectors and reset handler) */
        . = ALIGN(0x4);
     } >ROM

    .ramvect : {                        /* used for vectors remapped to RAM */
        __ram_start = .;
        . = 0x40;
    } >RAM

    .fastcode : {
        __fastcode_load = LOADADDR (.fastcode);
        __fastcode_start = .;

        *(.glue_7t) *(.glue_7)
        *isr.o (.text.*)
        *(.text.fastcode)
        *(.text.Blinky_dispatch)
        /* add other modules here ... */

        . = ALIGN (4);
        __fastcode_end = .;
    } >RAM AT>ROM

    .text : {
        . = ALIGN(4);
        *(.text)                                   /* .text sections (code) */
        *(.text*)                                 /* .text* sections (code) */
        *(.rodata)           /* .rodata sections (constants, strings, etc.) */
        *(.rodata*)         /* .rodata* sections (constants, strings, etc.) */
        *(.glue_7) /* glue arm to thumb (NOTE: placed already in .fastcode) */
        *(.glue_7t)/* glue thumb to arm (NOTE: placed already in .fastcode) */

        KEEP (*(.init))
        KEEP (*(.fini))

        . = ALIGN(4);
        _etext = .;                         /* global symbol at end of code */
    } >ROM

    .preinit_array : {
        PROVIDE_HIDDEN (__preinit_array_start = .);
        KEEP (*(SORT(.preinit_array.*)))
        KEEP (*(.preinit_array*))
        PROVIDE_HIDDEN (__preinit_array_end = .);
    } >ROM

    .init_array : {
        PROVIDE_HIDDEN (__init_array_start = .);
        KEEP (*(SORT(.init_array.*)))
        KEEP (*(.init_array*))
        PROVIDE_HIDDEN (__init_array_end = .);
    } >ROM

    .fini_array : {
        PROVIDE_HIDDEN (__fini_array_start = .);
        KEEP (*(.fini_array*))
        KEEP (*(SORT(.fini_array.*)))
        PROVIDE_HIDDEN (__fini_array_end = .);
    } >ROM

    .data : {
        __data_load = LOADADDR (.data);
        __data_start = .;
        *(.data)                                          /* .data sections */
        *(.data*)                                        /* .data* sections */
        . = ALIGN(4);
        _edata = .;
    } >RAM AT>ROM

    .bss : {
        __bss_start__ = . ;
        *(.bss)
        *(.bss*)
        *(COMMON)
        . = ALIGN(4);
        _ebss = .;                     /* define a global symbol at bss end */
        __bss_end__ = .;
    } >RAM

    PROVIDE ( end = _ebss );
    PROVIDE ( _end = _ebss );
    PROVIDE ( __end__ = _ebss );

    .heap : {
        __heap_start__ = . ;
        . = . + HEAP_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN(4);
        __heap_end__ = . ;
    } >RAM

    .stack : {
        __stack_start__ = . ;

        . += IRQ_STACK_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN (4);
        __irq_stack_top__ = . ;

        . += FIQ_STACK_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN (4);
        __fiq_stack_top__ = . ;

        . += SVC_STACK_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN (4);
        __svc_stack_top__ = . ;

        . += ABT_STACK_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN (4);
        __abt_stack_top__ = . ;

        . += UND_STACK_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN (4);
        __und_stack_top__ = . ;

        . += C_STACK_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN (4);
        __c_stack_top__ = . ;

        __stack_end__ = .;
    } >RAM

    /* Remove information from the standard libraries */
    /DISCARD/ : {
        libc.a ( * )
        libm.a ( * )
        libgcc.a ( * )
    }
}

Throughout the example (such as in the .ramvect, .fastcode and .stack sections) there are symbol definitions such as __ram_start = .;. These addresses are used by the startup assembly code and initialization C code in order to initialize the correct locations in the MCU's RAM.

What I have a problem understanding, is how these symbol definitions result in the correct values being assigned. This does happen, the script is correct, I just don't understand how.

The way I understand it, when you use the location counter within a section, it only contains a relative offset from the virtual memory address (VMA) of the section itself.

So for example, in the line __ram_start = .;, I would expect __ram_start to be assigned a value of 0x0 - as it is assigned the value of the location counter at the very beginning of the .ramvect section. However, for the initialization code to work correctly (which it does), __ram_start must be getting assigned as 0x00200000 (the address for the beginning of RAM).

I would have thought this would only work as intended if the line was instead __ram_start = ABSOLUTE(.); or __ram_start = ADDR(.ramvect);.

The same goes for __fastcode_start and __stack_start__. They can't all be getting defined as address 0x0, otherwise the program wouldn't work. But the documentation linked here seems to suggest that that's what should be happening. Here's the quote from the documentation:

Note: . actually refers to the byte offset from the start of the current containing object. Normally this is the SECTIONS statement, whose start address is 0, hence . can be used as an absolute address. If . is used inside a section description however, it refers to the byte offset from the start of that section, not an absolute address.

So the location counter values during those symbol assignments should be offsets from the corresponding section VMAs. So those "_start" symbols should all be getting set to 0x0. Which would break the program.

So obviously I'm missing something. I suppose it could simply be that assigning the location counter value to a symbol (within a section) results in ABSOLUTE() being used by default. But I haven't been able to find a clear explanation anywhere that confirms this.

Thanks in advance if anybody can clear this up.

Answer 1

I think I may have figured out the answer to my own question. I'm not sure I'm right, but it's the first explanation I've been able to think of that actually makes sense. What made me rethink things was this page of the documentation. Particularly this quote:

Addresses and symbols may be section relative, or absolute. A section relative symbol is relocatable. If you request relocatable output using the `-r' option, a further link operation may change the value of a section relative symbol. On the other hand, an absolute symbol will retain the same value throughout any further link operations.

and this quote:

You can use the builtin function ABSOLUTE to force an expression to be absolute when it would otherwise be relative. For example, to create an absolute symbol set to the address of the end of the output section .data:

 SECTIONS
   {
     .data : { *(.data) _edata = ABSOLUTE(.); }
   }

If ABSOLUTE were not used, _edata would be relative to the .data section.

I had read them before, but this time I saw them from a new perspective.

So I think my misinterpretation was thinking that a symbol, when assigned a relative byte offset address, is simply set to the value of that offset while the base address information is lost.

That was based on this quote from my original question:

Note: . actually refers to the byte offset from the start of the current containing object. Normally this is the SECTIONS statement, whose start address is 0, hence . can be used as an absolute address. If . is used inside a section description however, it refers to the byte offset from the start of that section, not an absolute address.

Instead what I now understand to be happening is that the base address information is not lost. The symbol does not simply get assigned the value of the offset from the base address. The symbol will still eventually resolves to an absolute address, but only when there's no chance its base address can change.

So where I thought that something like __stack_start__ = . ; should have to be changed to __stack_start__ = ABSOLUTE(.) ;, which does work, I now think it is unnecessary. What's more, I understand from the first quote in this response that you can relink an ELF file?

So if I used __stack_start__ = ABSOLUTE(.) ;, ran the linker script to create the ELF executable, then tried to relink it and moved the .stack section somewhere else, the __stack_start__ symbol would still be pointing to the same absolute address from the first link, and thus be incorrect.

This is probably hard to follow, but I've written it as articulately as I could. I suspect I've got close to the right idea, but I still need someone who actually knows about this stuff to confirm or deny this.