9.5.5 Sections Command

The SECTIONS command tells the linker how to map input sections into output sections and how to place the output sections in memory.

The format of the SECTIONS command is:

  SECTIONS
{
  sections-command
  sections-command
  ...
}

Each SECTIONS command may be one of the following:

an ENTRY command (see Other Linker Script Commands)
a symbol assignment (see Assigning Values to Symbols)
an output section description
an overlay description

The ENTRY command and symbol assignments are permitted inside the SECTIONS command where they may use the location counter (see The Location Counter). This can also make the linker script easier to understand because those commands can be used at meaningful points in the layout of the output file.

Output section descriptions and overlay descriptions are described below.

If a SECTIONS command does not appear in the linker script, the linker will place each input section into an identically named output section in the order that the sections are first encountered in the input files. If all input sections are present in the first file, for example, the order of sections in the output file will match the order in the first input file. The first section will be at address zero.