boot@osf.org (02/06/90)
We (OSF) would like to add a new section to a MIPS object file. We
intend to use this section to contain normal dbx-style debugging
information. The GNU debugger (gdb) would then read this section and
use it, bypassing the COFF symbol format entirely. We want this
section to be ignored by most tools, and perhaps combined into a
single section in the final a.out file.
As an experiment, we tried adding .section pseudo-ops to some
hand-crafted assembly language. Unfortunately, this failed since the
assembler didn't understand .section.
Our questions are these:
(1) Is there any way to create a new section via undocumented
assembly language features? If not, why does MIPS COFF deviate
from other COFF implementations in this?
(2) If we do manage to create a new section in an object file, what
will the linker do with it? Will sections with the same name and
attributes be automatically combined by the linker?
Thanks in advance for any insight anyone can shed on all of this.
Bruce Bauman
Open Software Foundation