[Bug c/113610] New: Manpage could be more clear about gcc's -e flag

[Bug c/113610] New: Manpage could be more clear about gcc's -e flag

[mike at flyn dot org]

https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=113610

            Bug ID: 113610
           Summary: Manpage could be more clear about gcc's -e flag
           Product: gcc
           Version: 13.2.1
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P3
         Component: c
          Assignee: unassigned at gcc dot gnu.org
          Reporter: mike at flyn dot org
  Target Milestone: ---

The GCC manpage states this:

-e entry
--entry=entry
    Specify that the program entry point is entry. The argument is interpreted
    by the linker; the GNU linker accepts either a symbol name or an address.

It might be worth noting that this refers to _start, and not main. Many
references refer to main as the "entry point" for a C program. Of course,
thinking this here fails to realize there is significant initialization that
will not happen when using -e. Either mentioning _start explicitly or noting
that changing the entry point might leave things like the heap uninitialized (I
think) might help.

The same can be said about the ld manpage.

[Bug driver/113610] Manpage could be more clear about gcc's -e flag

[pinskia at gcc dot gnu.org]

https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=113610

Andrew Pinski <pinskia at gcc dot gnu.org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Component|c                           |driver

--- Comment #1 from Andrew Pinski <pinskia at gcc dot gnu.org> ---
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-13.2.0/gcc/Link-Options.html#index-e

[Bug driver/113610] Manpage could be more clear about gcc's -e flag

[pinskia at gcc dot gnu.org]

https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=113610

Andrew Pinski <pinskia at gcc dot gnu.org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Keywords|                            |documentation

--- Comment #2 from Andrew Pinski <pinskia at gcc dot gnu.org> ---
The GNU documentation for -e can be found at:
https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs-2.41/ld/Options.html

And then references
https://sourceware.org/binutils/docs-2.41/ld/Entry-Point.html for the defaults.

Maybe it should mention this is more for embedded folks and is not talking
about main.