Re: Initialize data section in arm/crt0.S

["Pilhofer, Frank" <Frank dot Pilhofer at zuehlke dot com>]

On 07/14/14, Richard Earnshaw wrote:
>
> I don't think this is right.  The standard crt0 is supposed to work with conventional loadable image files (like an ELF executable).  Such images have initialized data in the correct location; on the other hand, the zero-initialized data does not exist in the image and the file format just specifies how large the uninitialized data segment is.  A real loader (such as in Linux) would do the zero-initialization for the code, but there's no loader in a bare-metal system, so it has to do it itself.
>

Richard, I think this information is the missing link that I was looking for. So it appears that I will not be able to use _start as the entry point. The people at gcc-arm-embedded also suggested that I have to provide my own entry point that initializes BSS and data, and then calls _mainCRTStartup, which is an alias for _start in crt0.S. That should do the trick.#

It just seemed odd that I have to do the data initialization myself, but your explanation makes sense. Yes, the application is in flash, there is no loader, but the data must be initialized somwhere after a reset.

>
> Furthermore __data_load__ is not a standard symbol exported by linker scripts, so this would just break most uses of this file.
>

I am also wondering about these names. I have found many linker scripts, but they are not consistent, and they seem to contain a lot of crud (dozens of section names that seem very specific). Is there a list of standard symbol names and section names? Is there a reference linker script somewhere?

Thank you,
Frank