RE: Size of .comm section not reported by objdump/size

[Jon Beniston]

Hi Ian,

> > It appears as though objdump does not display information 
> for data in 
> > .comm section.
> 
> That is correct.  That is because there is no .comm section.  
> Instead this information is represented by defining a common 
> symbol.  A common symbol has a name and a size.  The linker 
> will allocate memory for it when producing a fully linked 
> executable, or when invoked with the -d option.  A common 
> symbol may be replaced by a fully defined symbol; look at the 
> documentation for the --warn-common option.

Okay, I accept I'm using incorrect terminology. However, would it not be
useful if objdump -h or size were to display this information somehow?
For size, it should no doubt be displayed in an additional column, but
not displaying it at all seems kind of misleading.

> Common symbols will be displayed by nm or objdump -t.

Indeed, however, the total memory used for all common symbols isn't
summarised. 

Cheers,
JonB