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<h4 class="subsection">2.6.2 Section output</h4>
<p>To write a new object style BFD, the various sections to be
written have to be created. They are attached to the BFD in
the same way as input sections; data is written to the
sections using <code>bfd_set_section_contents</code>.
<p>Any program that creates or combines sections (e.g., the assembler
and linker) must use the <code>asection</code> fields <code>output_section</code> and
<code>output_offset</code> to indicate the file sections to which each
section must be written. (If the section is being created from
scratch, <code>output_section</code> should probably point to the section
itself and <code>output_offset</code> should probably be zero.)
<p>The data to be written comes from input sections attached
(via <code>output_section</code> pointers) to
the output sections. The output section structure can be
considered a filter for the input section: the output section
determines the vma of the output data and the name, but the
input section determines the offset into the output section of
the data to be written.
<p>E.g., to create a section "O", starting at 0x100, 0x123 long,
containing two subsections, "A" at offset 0x0 (i.e., at vma
0x100) and "B" at offset 0x20 (i.e., at vma 0x120) the <code>asection</code>
structures would look like:
<pre class="example"> section name "A"
output_offset 0x00
size 0x20
output_section -----------> section name "O"
| vma 0x100
section name "B" | size 0x123
output_offset 0x20 |
size 0x103 |
output_section --------|
</pre>
<h4 class="subsection">2.6.3 Link orders</h4>
<p>The data within a section is stored in a <dfn>link_order</dfn>.
These are much like the fixups in <code>gas</code>. The link_order
abstraction allows a section to grow and shrink within itself.
<p>A link_order knows how big it is, and which is the next
link_order and where the raw data for it is; it also points to
a list of relocations which apply to it.
<p>The link_order is used by the linker to perform relaxing on
final code. The compiler creates code which is as big as
necessary to make it work without relaxing, and the user can
select whether to relax. Sometimes relaxing takes a lot of
time. The linker runs around the relocations to see if any
are attached to data which can be shrunk, if so it does it on
a link_order by link_order basis.
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