8.34.5.4 literal
The .literal
directive is used to define literal pool data, i.e., read-only 32-bit data accessed via L32R
instructions.
.literal label, value[, value...]
This directive is similar to the standard .word
directive, except that the actual location of the literal data is determined by the assembler and linker, not by the position of the .literal
directive. Using this directive gives the assembler freedom to locate the literal data in the most appropriate place and possibly to combine identical literals. For example, the code:
entry sp, 40 .literal .L1, sym l32r a4, .L1
can be used to load a pointer to the symbol sym
into register a4
. The value of sym
will not be placed between the ENTRY
and L32R
instructions; instead, the assembler puts the data in a literal pool.
Literal pools for absolute mode L32R
instructions (see Absolute Literals Directive) are placed in a seperate .lit4
section. By default literal pools for PC-relative mode L32R
instructions are placed in a separate .literal
section; however, when using the --text-section-literals option (see Command Line Options), the literal pools are placed in the current section. These text section literal pools are created automatically before ENTRY
instructions and manually after .literal_position directives (see literal_position). If there are no preceding ENTRY
instructions, explicit .literal_position
directives must be used to place the text section literal pools; otherwise,
as will report an error.