I'm trying to understand why some Cortex-M0 code behaves differently when it is linked versus unlinked. In both cases it is loaded to 0x20000000. It looks like despite my best efforts to generate position independent code by passing -fPIC to the compiler, the bl instruction appears to differ after the code has passed through the linker. Am I reading this correctly, is that just a part of the linker's job in ARM Thumb, and is there a better way to generate a position independent function call?
Linked:
20000000:
20000000: 0003 movs r3, r0
20000002: 4852 ldr r0, [pc, #328]
20000004: 4685 mov sp, r0
20000006: 0018 movs r0, r3
20000008: f000 f802 bl 20000010
2000000c: 46c0 nop ; (mov r8, r8)
2000000e: 46c0 nop ; (mov r8, r8)
Unlinked:
00000000:
0: 0003 movs r3, r0
2: 4852 ldr r0, [pc, #328]
4: 4685 mov sp, r0
6: 0018 movs r0, r3
8: f7ff fffe bl 10
c: 46c0 nop ; (mov r8, r8)
e: 46c0 nop ; (mov r8, r8)
start.s
.globl _start
_start:
.word 0x20001000
.word reset
.word hang
.word hang
.thumb
.thumb_func
reset:
bl notmain
.thumb_func
hang:
b .
notmain.c
unsigned int x;
unsigned int fun ( unsigned int );
void notmain ( void )
{
x=fun(x+5);
}
fun.c
unsigned int y;
unsigned int fun ( unsigned int z )
{
return(y+z+1);
}
memmap
MEMORY
{
ram : ORIGIN = 0x20000000, LENGTH = 0x1000
}
SECTIONS
{
.text : { *(.text*) } > ram
.bss : { *(.bss*) } > ram
}
build
arm-none-eabi-as start.s -o start.o
arm-none-eabi-gcc -fPIC -O2 -c -mthumb fun.c -o fun.o
arm-none-eabi-gcc -fPIC -O2 -c -mthumb notmain.c -o notmain.o
arm-none-eabi-ld -T memmap start.o notmain.o fun.o -o so.elf
produces
20000000 <_start>:
20000000: 20001000 andcs r1, r0, r0
20000004: 20000011 andcs r0, r0, r1, lsl r0
20000008: 20000015 andcs r0, r0, r5, lsl r0
2000000c: 20000015 andcs r0, r0, r5, lsl r0
20000010 <reset>:
20000010: f000 f802 bl 20000018 <notmain>
20000014 <hang>:
20000014: e7fe b.n 20000014 <hang>
...
20000018 <notmain>:
20000018: b510 push {r4, lr}
2000001a: 4b06 ldr r3, [pc, #24] ; (20000034 <notmain+0x1c>)
2000001c: 4a06 ldr r2, [pc, #24] ; (20000038 <notmain+0x20>)
2000001e: 447b add r3, pc
20000020: 589c ldr r4, [r3, r2]
20000022: 6823 ldr r3, [r4, #0]
20000024: 1d58 adds r0, r3, #5
20000026: f000 f809 bl 2000003c <fun>
2000002a: 6020 str r0, [r4, #0]
2000002c: bc10 pop {r4}
2000002e: bc01 pop {r0}
20000030: 4700 bx r0
20000032: 46c0 nop ; (mov r8, r8)
20000034: 00000032 andeq r0, r0, r2, lsr r0
20000038: 00000000 andeq r0, r0, r0
2000003c <fun>:
2000003c: 4b03 ldr r3, [pc, #12] ; (2000004c <fun+0x10>)
2000003e: 4a04 ldr r2, [pc, #16] ; (20000050 <fun+0x14>)
20000040: 447b add r3, pc
20000042: 589b ldr r3, [r3, r2]
20000044: 681b ldr r3, [r3, #0]
20000046: 3301 adds r3, #1
20000048: 1818 adds r0, r3, r0
2000004a: 4770 bx lr
2000004c: 00000010 andeq r0, r0, r0, lsl r0
20000050: 00000004 andeq r0, r0, r4
Disassembly of section .got:
20000054 <.got>:
20000054: 20000068 andcs r0, r0, r8, rrx
20000058: 2000006c andcs r0, r0, ip, rrx
Disassembly of section .got.plt:
2000005c <_GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE_>:
...
Disassembly of section .bss:
20000068 <x>:
20000068: 00000000 andeq r0, r0, r0
2000006c <y>:
2000006c: 00000000 andeq r0, r0, r0
when it wants to find the global variable x what it appears to have done is it takes the program counter and a linker supplied/modfied offset 0x32 and uses that to find the entry in the global offset table. then takes an offset from that to find X. same for Y. so it appears that when you relocate you will need to modify the global offset table at runtime or load time depending.
If I get rid of those global variables, other than the vector table which is hardcoded and not PIC (and wasnt compiled anyway), this is all position independent.
20000000 <_start>:
20000000: 20001000 andcs r1, r0, r0
20000004: 20000011 andcs r0, r0, r1, lsl r0
20000008: 20000015 andcs r0, r0, r5, lsl r0
2000000c: 20000015 andcs r0, r0, r5, lsl r0
20000010 <reset>:
20000010: f000 f802 bl 20000018 <notmain>
20000014 <hang>:
20000014: e7fe b.n 20000014 <hang>
...
20000018 <notmain>:
20000018: b508 push {r3, lr}
2000001a: 2005 movs r0, #5
2000001c: f000 f804 bl 20000028 <fun>
20000020: 3006 adds r0, #6
20000022: bc08 pop {r3}
20000024: bc02 pop {r1}
20000026: 4708 bx r1
20000028 <fun>:
20000028: 3001 adds r0, #1
2000002a: 4770 bx lr
back to this version
unsigned int y;
unsigned int fun ( unsigned int z )
{
return(y+z+1);
}
position independent
00000000 <fun>:
0: 4b03 ldr r3, [pc, #12] ; (10 <fun+0x10>)
2: 4a04 ldr r2, [pc, #16] ; (14 <fun+0x14>)
4: 447b add r3, pc
6: 589b ldr r3, [r3, r2]
8: 681b ldr r3, [r3, #0]
a: 3301 adds r3, #1
c: 1818 adds r0, r3, r0
e: 4770 bx lr
10: 00000008 andeq r0, r0, r8
14: 00000000 andeq r0, r0, r0
not position independent
00000000 <fun>:
0: 4b02 ldr r3, [pc, #8] ; (c <fun+0xc>)
2: 681b ldr r3, [r3, #0]
4: 3301 adds r3, #1
6: 1818 adds r0, r3, r0
8: 4770 bx lr
a: 46c0 nop ; (mov r8, r8)
c: 00000000 andeq r0, r0, r0
the code has to do a bit more work to access the external variable. position dependent, some work because it is external but not as much. the linker will fill in the required items to make it work...to link it...
the elf file contains information for the linker to know to do this.
Relocation section '.rel.text' at offset 0x1a4 contains 2 entries:
Offset Info Type Sym.Value Sym. Name
00000010 00000a19 R_ARM_BASE_PREL 00000000 _GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE_
00000014 00000b1a R_ARM_GOT_BREL 00000004 y
or
Relocation section '.rel.text' at offset 0x174 contains 1 entries:
Offset Info Type Sym.Value Sym. Name
0000000c 00000a02 R_ARM_ABS32 00000004 y
notmain had these PIC
Relocation section '.rel.text' at offset 0x1cc contains 3 entries:
Offset Info Type Sym.Value Sym. Name
0000000e 00000a0a R_ARM_THM_CALL 00000000 fun
0000001c 00000b19 R_ARM_BASE_PREL 00000000 _GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE_
00000020 00000c1a R_ARM_GOT_BREL 00000004 x
and without.
Relocation section '.rel.text' at offset 0x198 contains 2 entries:
Offset Info Type Sym.Value Sym. Name
00000008 00000a0a R_ARM_THM_CALL 00000000 fun
00000014 00000b02 R_ARM_ABS32 00000004 x
so in short the toolchain is doing its job, you dont need to re-do its job. And note this has nothing to do with arm or thumb. any time you use the object and linker model and allow for external items from an object the linker has to patch things up to glue the code together. thats just how it works.