Thank you, Jim. So I guess I can conclude that when writing directly in assembly language, I don't need that extra .text. I'm sure that if I do something wrong with the various directives (.section .rodata, .data, .globl, .comm, etc.) the assembler and loader will tell me. It's just that this is for a book I'm writing, so I wanted to make sure I understand the situation to avoid saying something stupid in print. Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: Jim Wilson <jimw@xxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Friday, September 27, 2019 6:57 PM > To: Bob Plantz <rgplantz@xxxxxxxxxxx> > Cc: gcc-help@xxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: Using C on x86-64, why emit .text for global data? > > On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 10:44 AM Bob Plantz <rgplantz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Why does gcc emit an extra .text before the global data? > > > > .file "globalData.c" > > .text > > .globl x > > .data > > Compile an empty file, and you will see that it starts with the same two lines. > This probably just simplifies logic somewhere else in the compiler to force > the assembler into a known state at the beginning, regardless of what is > actually in the C file. There is no harm in emitting an extra unnecessary .text > directive to the assembler. > > Jim
