About mapping symbols

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Arm^® Compiler Reference Guide

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C5.1 About mapping symbols

Mapping symbols are generated by the compiler and assembler to identify various inline transitions.

For Arm^®v7‑A, inline transitions can be between:

Code and data at literal pool boundaries.
Arm code and Thumb^® code, such as Arm and Thumb interworking veneers.

For Armv8‑A, inline transitions can be between:

Code and data at literal pool boundaries.
A32 code and T32 code, such as A32/T32 interworking veneers.

For Armv6‑M, Armv7‑M, and Armv8‑M, inline transitions can be between code and data at literal pool boundaries.

The mapping symbols available for each architecture are:

Symbol	Description	Architecture
`$a`	Start of a sequence of Arm/A32 instructions.	All
`$t`	Start of a sequence of Thumb/T32 instructions.	All
`$t.x`	Start of a sequence of ThumbEE instructions.	Armv7‑A
`$d`	Start of a sequence of data items, such as a literal pool.	All
`$x`	Start of A64 code.	Armv8‑A

armlink generates the $d.realdata mapping symbol to communicate to fromelf that the data is from a non-executable section. Therefore, the code and data sizes output by fromelf -z are the same as the output from armlink --info sizes, for example:

      Code (inc. data)   RO Data
         x          y          z

In this example, the y is marked with $d, and RO Data is marked with $d.realdata.

Note:

Symbols beginning with the characters $v are mapping symbols related to VFP and might be output when building for a target with VFP. Avoid using symbols beginning with $v in your source code.

Be aware that modifying an executable image with the fromelf --elf --strip=localsymbols command removes all mapping symbols from the image.