ELF sections are independent, named, indivisible sequences of code or data. A single code section is the minimum required to produce an application.

The output of an assembly or compilation can include:

The linker places each section in a program image according to section placement rules. Sections that are adjacent in source files are not necessarily adjacent in the application image

In a source file, the AREA directive marks the start of a section. This directive names the section and sets its attributes. The attributes are placed after the name, separated by commas.

You can choose any name for your sections. However, names starting with any non-alphabetic character must be enclosed in bars, or an AREA name missing error is generated. For example, |1_DataArea|.

Example 6 defines a single read-only section called ARMex that contains code.

        AREA     ARMex, CODE, READONLY
                                ; Name this block of code ARMex