From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: "Koundinya.K" <kk@ddeorg.soft.net>
To: ian@cygnus.com, gas2@cygnus.com, bfd@cygnus.com
Subject: GNU linker on MIPS and the _etext section ....
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 00:48:00 -0000
Message-id: <199902200847.OAA10979@bombay.ddeorg.soft.net>
X-SW-Source: 1999/msg00021.html

Dear all and Ian,
	I have some doubt regarding the _etext section. I am still in the process 
of debugging the GNU linker. After some hours of debugging last night I 
found that my runtime linker is getting killed because a call to the _etext 
is resulting in a procedure linkage table entry for my run time linker. 
After this all the binder code of the run time linker is called and then the 
linker gets killed. I don't know how far I am correct. Here is my 
observation of a test program that I first compiled using gcc and native ld 
, then compiled again with gcc and gnu ld.

1) gcc and the native ld.	(No problem here )

_____________ Earlier Stuff not shown ____________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________

0x40062ed8 in _exithandle ()
0x40062edc in _exithandle ()
0x40062ee0 in _exithandle ()
0x400744 in _fini ()
0x400748 in _fini ()
0x400750 in _fini ()
0x400754 in _fini ()
0x400758 in _fini ()
0x40075c in _fini ()
0x400760 in _fini ()
0x400764 in _fini ()
0x400768 in _fini ()
0x40076c in _fini ()
0x400770 in _fini ()
0x40062ee8 in _exithandle ()
0x40062eec in _exithandle ()
0x40062ef0 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ef4 in _exithandle ()
_________________________ Later stuff not shown _____________________________
_

2) gcc and GNU ld 

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________ Earlier Stuff not shown _________________________________

0x40062ed4 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ed8 in _exithandle ()
0x40062edc in _exithandle ()
0x40062ee0 in _exithandle ()
0x4009c0 in _etext ()
0x4009c4 in _etext ()
0x4009cc in _etext ()
0x4009d0 in _etext ()
0x4009d4 in _etext ()
0x4009d8 in _etext ()
0x4009dc in _etext ()
0x4009e0 in _etext ()
0x4009e4 in _etext ()
0x4009e8 in _etext ()
0x4009ec in _etext ()
0x40062ee8 in _exithandle ()
0x40062eec in _exithandle ()
0x40062ef0 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ef4 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ec4 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ec8 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ecc in _exithandle ()
0x40062ed0 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ed4 in _exithandle ()
0x40062ed8 in _exithandle ()
0x40062edc in _exithandle ()
0x40062ee0 in _exithandle ()
0x400980 in _cleanup ()
0x400984 in _cleanup ()
0x400988 in _cleanup ()
0x40051310 in _rtbinder ()
0x40051314 in _rtbinder ()

after many more steppings I get ...

Hello
dynamic linker: ./tt1: unidentifiable procedure reference (address = 
0x40062ee8)
Killed

_____________________________________________________________________________
__


I am using gdb for debugging. 

For gcc + gnu ld combination I am able to step into the _etext function.

For the gcc + native ld combination I am not able to get into _etext ().

I get a message from gdb like this.

_____________________________________________________________________________
__
(gdb) break _etext
warning: Hit heuristic-fence-post without finding
warning: enclosing function for address 0x400778
This warning occurs if you are debugging a function without any symbols
(for example, in a stripped executable).  In that case, you may wish to
increase the size of the search with the `set heuristic-fence-post' command.

Otherwise, you told GDB there was a function where there isn't one, or
(more likely) you have encountered a bug in GDB.
Breakpoint 2 at 0x400778

_____________________________________________________________________________


I would be glad I can get any pointers on these issues and the problem that 
I am facing.

With best regards

Koundinya