Re: GNU LD fails to generate correct ARM Thumb veneer

[Nick Clifton <nickc at redhat dot com>]

Hi Aaron,

>   - the first file to be linked is an ARM assembly .s file
>     that contains the ARM vector table and handler addresses.
>     the vector table is in a separate section called .VhaInit.

Did you know that you can use the KEEP directive in a linker script (or 
a linker script fragment) in order to make sure that the .VhaInit 
section is not garbage collected ?


> - when i add code to access .VhaInit entries from .text to prevent the
>   garbage collection of .VhaInit, Thumb Interworking code is ZERO. the
>   entries are present, but no interworking code is present.

What sort of code are you adding and how are you adding it ?

> - when i remove code that accesses .VhaInit, Interworking code is
>   correct.
>
> - when i disable -ffunction-sections, -fdata-sections, and
>   -gc-sections, and when i still access data in .VhaInit from .text,
>   Interworking is correct.
>
> so, what's going on? 8-)
>
> i think its a bug in GNU LD.
>
> any help will be gratefully accepted.

You try to isolate whether this really is a linker bug.  (It certainly 
sounds like it is).  If you can reproduce the problem just using 
assembler source files then please file a bug report with the binutils 
project (at http://sourceware.org/bugzilla).  Including a *small* test 
case will really help.

Cheers
  Nick