1<html lang="en"> 2<head> 3<title>Output Section Discarding - Untitled</title> 4<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html"> 5<meta name="description" content="Untitled"> 6<meta name="generator" content="makeinfo 4.13"> 7<link title="Top" rel="start" href="index.html#Top"> 8<link rel="up" href="SECTIONS.html#SECTIONS" title="SECTIONS"> 9<link rel="prev" href="Output-Section-Keywords.html#Output-Section-Keywords" title="Output Section Keywords"> 10<link rel="next" href="Output-Section-Attributes.html#Output-Section-Attributes" title="Output Section Attributes"> 11<link href="http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/" rel="generator-home" title="Texinfo Homepage"> 12<!-- 13This file documents the GNU linker LD 14(Sourcery CodeBench Lite 2011.09-69) 15version 2.21.53. 16 17Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 182001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 19 20Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document 21under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 22or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; 23with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no 24Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the 25section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''.--> 26<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"> 27<style type="text/css"><!-- 28 pre.display { font-family:inherit } 29 pre.format { font-family:inherit } 30 pre.smalldisplay { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 31 pre.smallformat { font-family:inherit; font-size:smaller } 32 pre.smallexample { font-size:smaller } 33 pre.smalllisp { font-size:smaller } 34 span.sc { font-variant:small-caps } 35 span.roman { font-family:serif; font-weight:normal; } 36 span.sansserif { font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal; } 37--></style> 38<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../cs.css"> 39</head> 40<body> 41<div class="node"> 42<a name="Output-Section-Discarding"></a> 43<p> 44Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Output-Section-Attributes.html#Output-Section-Attributes">Output Section Attributes</a>, 45Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="Output-Section-Keywords.html#Output-Section-Keywords">Output Section Keywords</a>, 46Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="SECTIONS.html#SECTIONS">SECTIONS</a> 47<hr> 48</div> 49 50<h4 class="subsection">3.6.7 Output Section Discarding</h4> 51 52<p><a name="index-discarding-sections-440"></a><a name="index-sections_002c-discarding-441"></a><a name="index-removing-sections-442"></a>The linker will not create output sections with no contents. This is 53for convenience when referring to input sections that may or may not 54be present in any of the input files. For example: 55<pre class="smallexample"> .foo : { *(.foo) } 56</pre> 57 <p class="noindent">will only create a ‘<samp><span class="samp">.foo</span></samp>’ section in the output file if there is a 58‘<samp><span class="samp">.foo</span></samp>’ section in at least one input file, and if the input 59sections are not all empty. Other link script directives that allocate 60space in an output section will also create the output section. 61 62 <p>The linker will ignore address assignments (see <a href="Output-Section-Address.html#Output-Section-Address">Output Section Address</a>) 63on discarded output sections, except when the linker script defines 64symbols in the output section. In that case the linker will obey 65the address assignments, possibly advancing dot even though the 66section is discarded. 67 68 <p><a name="index-g_t_002fDISCARD_002f-443"></a>The special output section name ‘<samp><span class="samp">/DISCARD/</span></samp>’ may be used to discard 69input sections. Any input sections which are assigned to an output 70section named ‘<samp><span class="samp">/DISCARD/</span></samp>’ are not included in the output file. 71 72 </body></html> 73 74