[U-Boot-Users] Why are some global vars part of the image, and some not?

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <454F9FB2.8090009 at freescale.com> you wrote:
> 
> However, with the current u-boot linker scripts (some of them, at least; 
> I'm not going to make a sweeping statement about all 270), data 
> *explicitly* initialized to zero is also going in the bss.  Combined 

Yes, and this is perfectly fine from the ANSI  C  standard  point  of
view.  The  situation  is that we don;t have a standard C environment
yet, so you must not insist on being able to use standard C.

> with the fact that some C code is executed before the bss is cleared, 
> that is simply evil.

It is one of several restrictions. There are many more. For  example,
you  cannot write any data in the data segment either. And you cannot
put big data structures on the stack. And you have to  keep  in  mind
that  you  must  not  nest function calls too deeply because thestack
size is very limited. And... and...

It's IMHO nensense to figt this situation, you just  make  it  worse.
Insted,  please  focus on moving all complex code *after* relocation,
where all these problems go away automagically.

> I have stated the reason.  If you prefer an environment that invites 
> bugs and ugly workarounds thereto, then suit yourself.

You don't fix anything but one special case (the  initial  assignment
of  a  zero).  Any  later assignments to the same variable will still
fail. If this deems OK to you, then please just use "#define  foo  0"
instead of "int foo=0;"

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
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