RE: Adding a memory section causes linker to generate oversized file even with proper memory alignment

Boris Matešin — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 09:36:03 GMT

Hi, Håkon,

thank you for your guidance, I added the (NOLOAD) directive to the section as you suggested.
After compiling with optimization level -O2 (our standard for release versions):

the resulting hex file was the proper size (220 kB)
the MAP file showed the share_data section located at 0x2000ff80
the settings file was generated within 3 seconds and nrfutil did not use too much memory
the firmware performed as expected

Since the optimization level was unchanged since the last version and everything worked, I might add the __attributed__((used)) later on, if necessary.

Marking as resolved. Thank you!

RE: Adding a memory section causes linker to generate oversized file even with proper memory alignment

Håkon Alseth — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 07:55:22 GMT

Hi,

Try adding (NOLOAD) around your section.

.share_data(NOLOAD) :
{
PROVIDE(__start_share_data = .);
KEEP(*(.share_data))
PROVIDE(__stop_share_data = .);
} > RAM_SHARE

PS: I recommend that you declare your type with "type_t name __attribute__((used))" in case you change optimization settings and the compiler/linker finds out it can dump this section.

Cheers,

Håkon