Unwinding stack past main() when it has another name

Steven Johnson sjohnson@sakuraindustries.com
Thu Jun 16 21:22:00 GMT 2005


Daniel Jacobowitz wrote:

>The fact that we stop at _start is a feature, so hopefully you can rely
>on that in the future.
>
>For some non-C languages we get the name of the main function from
>debug information, but for C it's always main()
>  
>
This isnt always the case for embedded targets.  There is no RULE that C 
programs must have a main() function.  It may be that most do by 
convention, but they dont have to.  In fact, main() can be a pain for 
small embedded targets because it wants a return value and arguments, 
which mean nothing for a program that isnt "launched" by a user on 
demand, but the C compiler detects the special function name main() and 
objects if it doesnt have the standard format.  Programs dont even need 
to have an entry point called _start.  It all depends on how you set up 
your link map.

Steven Johnson



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