Re: [avr-gcc-list] Remove .bss size from RAM segment of AVR ELF?

[Tero Sinervo]

Weddington, Eric wrote:
> I can make it unambiguous: The .bss segment should NOT be written to
> Flash after .data as it would take up too much space in the precious
> Flash. The .data section has to be initialized from somewhere so it has
> to be stored in Flash.

Yes it's only ambiguous when you look at the ELF file. If you look at 
the RAM init segment you see that its paddr points to Flash memory and 
its size is .data+.bss even if we only want to program .data to the Flash.


> > This can be easily fixed in programming software but I wonder if it 
> > should be done in AVR ELF files too. Would it be possible to exclude 
> > .bss from AVR ELF file segments by setting memsz==filesz and 
> > only keep 
> > .bss as a section header? That would make the program part of the ELF 
> > file more consistent with actual programming.
>
> What advantage does making this change bring?

The program part of AVR ELF files would be closer to actual device 
programming by stating that you don't want to program .bss to Flash 
memory. Nothing big as it's not a large obstacle to write your 
programming software only to write .data and not initialize .bss.

One disadvantage I thought of is dynamic loading. The ELF files of 
dynamically loaded modules shouldn't of course be affected, only 
standalone embedded programs.


--
Tero Sinervo
Elekno Oy
http://www.elekno.com/