114 lines
		
	
	
	
		
			5.6 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			HTML
		
	
	
	
	
	
		
		
			
		
	
	
			114 lines
		
	
	
	
		
			5.6 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			HTML
		
	
	
	
	
	
| 
								 | 
							
								<html lang="en">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<head>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<title>Sub-Sections - Using as</title>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta name="description" content="Using as">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.7">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link rel="up" href="Sections.html#Sections" title="Sections">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link rel="prev" href="As-Sections.html#As-Sections" title="As Sections">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link rel="next" href="bss.html#bss" title="bss">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<!--
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								This file documents the GNU Assembler "as".
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Copyright (C) 1991, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 2001, 2002,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								man end-->
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<style type="text/css"><!--
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  pre.display { font-family:inherit }
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  pre.format  { font-family:inherit }
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller }
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  pre.smallformat  { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller }
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller }
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  pre.smalllisp    { font-size:smaller }
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  span.sc { font-variant:small-caps }
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								  span.roman { font-family: serif; font-weight: normal; } 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								--></style>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</head>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<body>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<div class="node">
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<a name="Sub_002dSections"></a>Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="bss.html#bss">bss</a>,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="As-Sections.html#As-Sections">As Sections</a>,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Sections.html#Sections">Sections</a>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<hr><br>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</div>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<h3 class="section">4.4 Sub-Sections</h3>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<p><a name="index-numbered-subsections-204"></a><a name="index-grouping-data-205"></a>Assembled bytes
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								conventionally
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								fall into two sections: text and data. 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								You may have separate groups of
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								data in named sections
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								that you want to end up near to each other in the object file, even though they
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								are not contiguous in the assembler source.  <span class="command">as</span> allows you to
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								use <dfn>subsections</dfn> for this purpose.  Within each section, there can be
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								numbered subsections with values from 0 to 8192.  Objects assembled into the
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								same subsection go into the object file together with other objects in the same
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								subsection.  For example, a compiler might want to store constants in the text
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								section, but might not want to have them interspersed with the program being
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								assembled.  In this case, the compiler could issue a <span class="samp">.text 0</span> before each
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								section of code being output, and a <span class="samp">.text 1</span> before each group of
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								constants being output.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								   <p>Subsections are optional.  If you do not use subsections, everything
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								goes in subsection number zero.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								   <p>Each subsection is zero-padded up to a multiple of four bytes. 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								(Subsections may be padded a different amount on different flavors
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								of <span class="command">as</span>.)
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								   <p>Subsections appear in your object file in numeric order, lowest numbered
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								to highest.  (All this to be compatible with other people's assemblers.) 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								The object file contains no representation of subsections; <code>ld</code> and
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								other programs that manipulate object files see no trace of them. 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								They just see all your text subsections as a text section, and all your
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								data subsections as a data section.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								   <p>To specify which subsection you want subsequent statements assembled
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								into, use a numeric argument to specify it, in a <span class="samp">.text
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</span><var>expression</var> or a <span class="samp">.data </span><var>expression</var> statement. 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								When generating COFF output, you
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								can also use an extra subsection
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								argument with arbitrary named sections: <span class="samp">.section </span><var>name</var><span class="samp">,
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</span><var>expression</var>. 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								When generating ELF output, you
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								can also use the <code>.subsection</code> directive (see <a href="SubSection.html#SubSection">SubSection</a>)
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								to specify a subsection: <span class="samp">.subsection </span><var>expression</var>. 
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<var>Expression</var> should be an absolute expression
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								(see <a href="Expressions.html#Expressions">Expressions</a>).  If you just say <span class="samp">.text</span> then <span class="samp">.text 0</span>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								is assumed.  Likewise <span class="samp">.data</span> means <span class="samp">.data 0</span>.  Assembly
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								begins in <code>text 0</code>.  For instance:
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<pre class="smallexample">     .text 0     # The default subsection is text 0 anyway.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .ascii "This lives in the first text subsection. *"
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .text 1
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .ascii "But this lives in the second text subsection."
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .data 0
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .ascii "This lives in the data section,"
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .ascii "in the first data subsection."
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .text 0
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .ascii "This lives in the first text section,"
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								     .ascii "immediately following the asterisk (*)."
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								</pre>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								   <p>Each section has a <dfn>location counter</dfn> incremented by one for every byte
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								assembled into that section.  Because subsections are merely a convenience
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								restricted to <span class="command">as</span> there is no concept of a subsection location
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								counter.  There is no way to directly manipulate a location counter—but the
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								<code>.align</code> directive changes it, and any label definition captures its
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								current value.  The location counter of the section where statements are being
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								assembled is said to be the <dfn>active</dfn> location counter.
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								   </body></html>
							 | 
						||
| 
								 | 
							
								
							 |