5.1.5 Section Directive

The .section assembler directive is used to define a new section or switch to an existing section in the output file. The general form of the .section directive is as follows:

.section name[, "flags"[, %type]]

where the components are as follows:

name

This is the name of the section you want to create or switch to. Section names are typically strings and can be user-defined or standard names like .text, .data, .bss, etc.

flags

This is an optional string that specifies the attributes of the section.

type

This is an optional argument that specifies the section type. It is preceded by the % symbol.

The section flags are enclosed in double quotes and can include one or more of the following characters:

a

Is allocatable—the section will be loaded into memory during execution.

w

Is writable—the section can be written to during execution.

x

Is executable—the section contains executable code.

T

TLS (Thread-Local Storage)—the section contains thread-local storage data.

The commonly used section types include:

progbits

The section contains data or code.

nobits

The section does not occupy space in the file but is allocated in memory (e.g., .bss).

note

The section contains note information.

init_array

The section contains pointers to initialization functions.