Re: gcc symbol names

["Martin v. Loewis" <martin@loewis.home.cs.tu-berlin.de>]

> So, how do I make the symbols 'T' instead of 't'?

For the _GLOBAL_ symbols, the compiler decides whether to make them
static or not in gcc/cp/decl2.c:

#if defined(ASM_OUTPUT_CONSTRUCTOR) && defined(ASM_OUTPUT_DESTRUCTOR)
  /* It can be a static function as long as collect2 does not have
     to scan the object file to find its ctor/dtor routine.  */
  TREE_PUBLIC (current_function_decl) = 0;
#endif

Since they apparently got static, I conclude that
ASM_OUTPUT_CONSTRUCTOR is defined for your platform. It would be
really good if you had provided assembler output for a simple example
like

struct A{A();};
A a;

which would show what exactly the generated assembler code look
like. You can ask gcc to generate assembler code with the -S option.

On my platform (i586-pc-linux-gnu) it generates a fragment 

_GLOBAL_.I.a:
  ... here is the initialization of a
.section        .ctors,"aw"
  .long    _GLOBAL_.I.a

The section statement is the result of my target defining
ASM_OUTPUT_CONSTRUCTOR. On Linux, all constructor functions go into a
section .ctors. All those sections are combined by the linker to a
single section, which is at run-time processed from crtbegin.o, as
part of the .init processing. .init is an ELF section which is
automatically executed by the operating system before executing the
program entry.

> I compiled the code using the Solaris platform (g++ 2.7.2) targetted for
> VxWorks and everything works fine. I then reran "munch" which goes
> through the libx.a file and extracts the globals and puts them in a C
> accessable ctor/dtor file for compiling with a c compiler -- I am told
> this is a need of VxWorks.

Are you sure you really *need* to run "munch"? This is a historical
alternative for executing constructors, and it indeed needs the
symbols exported. Of course, if you have a real constructor section,
then the system could (and should) collect the ctors from the .ctors
section, not because their names start with _GLOBAL_.

If your target really does not support a true ctors section, then it
appears that it was incorrect to define ASM_OUTPUT_CONSTRUCTOR for
it. You need to locate the place where this is defined, and correct it
accordingly.

If you cannot find that place, you can also remove the line from
cp/decl.c as a work-around.

Regards,
Martin