Question about ld script file behaviour

[Matthew Gretton-Dann <matthew dot gretton-dann at arm dot com>]

All,

The following patch causes the ld-arm/script-type test to fail (target
any arm*-*-*):
    http://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2010-08/msg00169.html

The test case defines some symbols in an object and then in a linker
script causes other symbols to be defined based upon those symbols:

SECTIONS {
  foo_a = bar_a;
  foo_t = bar_t;
  foo_o = bar_o;
  .text : { *(.text) }
  .ARM.attribues 0 : { *(.ARM.attributes) }
}

The currently expected output is:

Symbol table '.symtab' contains 13 entries:
   Num:    Value  Size Type    Bind   Vis      Ndx Name
     0: 00000000     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT  UND 
     1: 00000000     0 SECTION LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 
     2: 00000000     0 SECTION LOCAL  DEFAULT    2 
     3: 00000000     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 \$a
     4: 00000010     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 \$d
     5: 00000014     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 \$a
     6: 00000020     0 NOTYPE  LOCAL  DEFAULT    1 \$t
     7: 00000010     0 OBJECT  GLOBAL DEFAULT    1 bar_o
     8: 00000021     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT    1 bar_t
     9: 00000000     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT    1 foo_a
    10: 00000021     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT    1 foo_t
    11: 00000010     0 OBJECT  GLOBAL DEFAULT    1 foo_o
    12: 00000000     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT    1 bar_a

Following the above change foo_a, foo_t, and foo_o are now absolute
symbols so the appropriate rows of the symbol table look like this:

     9: 00000000     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT  ABS foo_a
    10: 00000021     0 FUNC    GLOBAL DEFAULT  ABS foo_t
    11: 00000010     0 OBJECT  GLOBAL DEFAULT  ABS foo_o

>From following the email thread associated with the above patch I
believe the change is valid, but don't understand linker scripts well
enough to be 100% sure.

So can someone who understands linker scripting please confirm the
change in output is expected and valid?

Thanks,

Matt


-- 
Matthew Gretton-Dann
Principal Engineer - PDSW Tools
ARM Ltd