[Dwarf-Discuss] Interpretation of DWARF FDE->CIE_pointer field for .debug_frame

[Jakub Jelinek]

On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 12:43:15PM +0530, Vineet Gupta wrote:
> Pardon me if I sound dense (not really my area of expertise), wowever, the 2nd
> word in FDE above (@.Lframe0) is a direct reference to start of .debbug_frame
> shouldn't it be something like
> 
> @.Lframe0 - @.Lframe0
> 
> i.e. zero.
> 
> Or do you think asseblmer/linker need to "interpret it" like that.

On most targets, .debug_* sections are placed at address 0, so absolute
relocations are the same as relocations relative to the start of the
section.
Note, in any case, it is always supposed to be start of the .debug_frame
section, not start of the contribution of the current translation unit to
the .debug_frame section.  So if you have two compilation units, one has 250
bytes in .debug_frame section and second has some CIE at offset 0, after
linking FDEs from the second CU would use CIE_pointer 250, not 0.

So, either .debug_* sections are placed at address 0 and then absolute
relocations will do the trick, or you need some kind of section relative
relocation (e.g. ia64 has it I think).  This isn't specific just to
.debug_frame, e.g. DW_FORM_strp/DW_FORM_sec_offset encoded values in .debug_info
or .debug_abbrev offsets in .debug_info CU header, DW_OP_call_ref arguments,
.debug_aranges/.debug_pubtypes/.debug_pubnames offsets to .debug_info all
have these requirements.

	Jakub