On Wed, 4 Nov 2020, H.J. Lu wrote: > .retain is ill-defined. For example, > > [hjl@gnu-cfl-2 gcc]$ cat /tmp/x.c > static int xyzzy __attribute__((__used__)); > [hjl@gnu-cfl-2 gcc]$ ./xgcc -B./ -S /tmp/x.c -fcommon > [hjl@gnu-cfl-2 gcc]$ cat x.s > .file "x.c" > .text > .retain xyzzy <<<<<<<<< What does it do? > .local xyzzy > .comm xyzzy,4,4 > .ident "GCC: (GNU) 11.0.0 20201103 (experimental)" > .section .note.GNU-stack,"",@progbits > [hjl@gnu-cfl-2 gcc]$
To answer that question: it's up to the assembler, but for ELF and SHF_GNU_RETAIN, it seems obvious it'd tell the assembler to set SHF_GNU_RETAIN for the section where the symbol ends up. We both know this isn't rocket science with binutils. brgds, H-P
