The standard convention for a static C run-time provides the following 3 files:
crt0.o; This provides the _start symbol which is used as the entry point into a C program.crti.o; This provides the prologue to the _init and _fini symbols. As it occurs in the linker arguments before other object files, other object files may add function calls to the body of these symbols.crtn.o; This provides the epilogue to the _init and _fini symbols and occurs in the linker arguments after all other object files.The C runtime provides a mechanism for providing functions to be executed before and after main as constructors and destructors for object files and global state.
There are two mechanisms that provide this as documented in the System V ABI.
The first is the aforementioned _init and _fini symbols. The second is a set of regions called .preinit_array, .init_array, and .fini_array. Each of these is simply a vector of void function pointers to be executed.
The runtime must, before main, execute _init, all function pointers in .preinit_array, then all function pointers in .init_array. The runtime must also, at exit, execute all function pointers in .fini_array in reverse, then execute _fini.
To assist in iterating through these arrays, GCC's internal linker script defines the symbols __(preinit,init,fini)_array_(start,end) in the appropriate sections marking the first function in each and the end of the array.
_start SymbolArguments to _start are on the stack for all platforms. The top of the stack is structured as so:
For simplicity, we simply pass a pointer to the stack to the C entry in the runtime and dissasemble the stack there. The entry we use is as follows:
void __sel4_start_c(void *stack);
NOTE: __sel4_start_c is a void function as it should call the non-returning _exit symbol after calling main.