[PATCH] gas/doc: clarify internal symbol vs local symbol terminology

[Jan Beulich]

On 22.02.2026 03:50, Fangrui Song wrote:
> From: Fangrui Song <maskray@sourceware.org>
> 
> In ELF, "local symbols" refer to symbols of STB_LOCAL binding. The
> doc is inconsistent: while it uses "local symbol" in places like .local,
> "local symbols" are also used for .L-prefixed symbols (as determined by
> bfd_is_local_label).
> 
> Rename "Local Symbol Names" to "Internal Symbol Names" for .L-prefixed
> symbols, and rename "Local Labels" to "Numeric Local Labels" for
> N:/Nb/Nf numeric labels.  This avoids confusion with ELF STB_LOCAL
> "local symbols".
> 
> The term "internal symbol" is chosen over alternatives like "temporary
> symbol" because it describes the purpose of these symbols: they are for
> internal use by compilers and assemblers, not meant to be visible
> externally.

It might be nice to add "(albeit they can become visible in certain
situations)".

>  While ELF defines STV_INTERNAL as a symbol visibility, it
> is rarely used in practice and unlikely to cause confusion (only used by
> SGI for their link-time interprocedural optimization; useless on other
> OSes).

Other than the above: Okay.

Jan