Code in .subsection 0 should be prior to .subsection 1

[Georg-Johann Lay]

Am 24.11.25 um 11:11 schrieb Jan Beulich:
> On 24.11.2025 11:02, Georg-Johann Lay via Binutils wrote:
>> So I have problems grasping why code in .subsection 1
>> is located PRIOR to code in .subsection 0:
>>
>> ;; init.S
>> .section .init2,"ax",@progbits
>> .subsection 0
>> .type __init_sp,@function
>> .global __init_sp
>> __init_sp:
>>       ldi r22, 0
>>
>> ;; main.S
>> .section .init2,"ax",@progbits
>> .subsection 1
>>       ldi r22, 1
>> .global __init_sp
> 
> Sub-sections are an assembler-internal thing, i.e. that information is lost
> by the time the object file is built. Once again you could observe this
> yourself when looking at the dump of the generate objects, where you will
> see no trace of sub-sections.
> 
> Jan

Ok, thank you for the explanation.

Though that's not at all clear from the documentation.

Johann

>> So the expected disassembly is
>>
>> ldi r22, 0  ; .subsection 0
>> ldi r22, 1  ; .subsection 1
>>
>> But when I run
>>
>> avr-ld --version | head -1
>> avr-as main.S -o main.o
>>
>> avr-as init.S -o init.o
>> avr-ar cru libinit.a init.o
>> avr-ranlib libinit.a
>>
>> avr-ld main.o -o main.elf -L. -linit
>> avr-objdump -d main.elf
>>
>> The output is:
>>
>> GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.45.50.20250718
>>
>> main.elf:     file format elf32-avr
>>
>>
>> Disassembly of section .text:
>>
>> 00000000 <__ctors_end>:
>>      0:	61 e0       	ldi	r22, 0x01	; 1
>>
>> 00000002 <__init_sp>:
>>      2:	60 e0       	ldi	r22, 0x00	; 0
>>
>> The .init2 section is part of text and mentioned in the
>> default ld script:
>>
>>     .text   :
>>     {
>>       ....
>>       *(.init2)  /* Clear __zero_reg__, set up stack pointer.  */
>>       KEEP (*(.init2))
>>       ....
>>     } > text
>>
>> What am I doing / understanding wrong?
>> Is this a bug?
>>
>> Johann