. (location counter)

Denotes the current output location.

Remarks

The period always refers to a location in a sections segment, so is valid only in a sections-section definition. Within such a definition, ' .' may appear anywhere a symbol is valid.

Assigning a new, greater value to ' .' causes the location counter to advance. But it is not possible to decrease the location-counter value, so it is not possible to assign a new, lesser value to ' .' You can use this effect to create empty space in an output section, as the The following listing example does.

Example

The code of the following listing moves the location counter to a position 0x10000 bytes past the symbol __start.

Listing: Moving the Location Counter


..data :

{

     *.(data)

     *.(bss)

     *.(COMMON)

     __start = .;

     . = __start + 0x10000;

     __end = .;

} > DATA