Thema: bss (Archive)

How Does the “File Size is Smaller Than Mem Size” Optimization Work in GNU ld for the .bss Section?

This article explains how the GNU linker (GNU ld) can save disk space for symbols in the .bss section. TL;DR: If a section is of type SHT_NOBITS and if it is the last section in a LOAD segment, GNU ld uses this optimization. When you build software with a compiled Read more…

By Philipp Schuster, 2 years2022-12-07 ago

Symbolic Picture: .bss is part of .data section

Programming & DevOps

GNU ld: Linking .bss into .data to Ensure that Mem Size Equals File Size For Each LOAD Segment (.bss in a PROGBITS Section)

Update: I found another variant. I appended it to the end of the article. Original post: Some rudimentary ELF loaders require that p_memsz equals p_filesz for each LOAD segment in order to simplify the loading of the file. For example, the microkernels NOVA and Hedron have this restriction to bootstrap Read more…

By Philipp Schuster, 2 years2022-12-07 ago