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Support a .noinit section for variables #996
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This is inspired by the linker sripts on the AVR architecture, which support a .noinit section (or any section starting with .noinit, actually) for variables that should be allocated an address in RAM, but not be initialized to any particular value (not even zero) on startup. These can then be used to remember values across resets. From the sketch perspective, this works exactly the same as on AVR: Just annote a global variable with `__attribute__((__section__(".noinit")))` and it will have an unpredictable value on power-up and retain its value during resets. To implement this without having to change all board-specific linker scripts, the linker commandline is changed to pass the board-specific linker script to the `--default-script` linker script, and change the main linker script (passed to `--script`, previously `-T`) to a generic "override" linker script. This new generic linker script contains an `INSERT BEFORE` command, which causes the linker to load it *in addition to* the default linker script, while adding an extra `.noinit` output section in the right place. Because these new variables take up RAM but have their own section in the .elf file, they should be accounted for in the size summary after compilation. This is done by adapting the `recipe.size.regex.data` entry to include this new section.
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Thanks @matthijskooijman
LGTM
@matthijskooijman |
Thanks for the quick merge :-)
Of course, any suggestion on where would be appropriate? I was thinking maybe here: https://github.com/stm32duino/wiki/wiki/API and then make a new section "Other" (on the same level as "Built-in library") with "Uninitialized variables" under there? |
Sound good for me. |
This is inspired by the linker sripts on the AVR architecture, which
support a .noinit section (or any section starting with .noinit,
actually) for variables that should be allocated an address in RAM, but
not be initialized to any particular value (not even zero) on startup.
These can then be used to remember values across resets.
From the sketch perspective, this works exactly the same as on AVR: Just
annote a global variable with
__attribute__((__section__(".noinit")))
and it will have an unpredictable value on power-up and retain its value
during resets.
To implement this without having to change all board-specific linker
scripts, the linker commandline is changed to pass the board-specific
linker script to the
--default-script
linker script, and change themain linker script (passed to
--script
, previously-T
) to a generic"override" linker script. This new generic linker script contains an
INSERT BEFORE
command, which causes the linker to load it in additionto the default linker script, while adding an extra
.noinit
outputsection in the right place.
Because these new variables take up RAM but have their own section in
the .elf file, they should be accounted for in the size summary after
compilation. This is done by adapting the
recipe.size.regex.data
entryto include this new section.
I originally implemented this for the reset-to-bootloader in #710, but I think this is useful by itself as well, for sketches to use, even when #710 might not end up using this. Also, since this is distinct feature, it helps unclutter #710 by merging this separately.
To test it, consider the following sketch:
This shows the number of boots since the last POR by incrementing a noinit variable across resets. Note that when you first upload this, it might not start at 1 but at some arbitrary value, because typically the first boot after an upload is not a power-on-reset. To start at 1, disconnect and reconnect power.