The next step is to ensure the program has the right memory layout so that the target system will be able to execute it. In our example, we'll be working with a virtual Cortex-M3 microcontroller: the LM3S6965. Our program will be the only process running on the device so it must also take care of initializing the device.

Cortex-M devices require a vector table to be present at the start of their code memory region. The vector table is an array of pointers; the first two pointers are required to boot the device; the rest of pointers are related to exceptions -- we'll ignore them for now.

Linkers decide the final memory layout of programs, but we can use linker scripts to have some control over it. The control granularity that linker scripts give us over the layout is at the level of sections. A section is a collection of symbols laid out in contiguous memory. Symbols, in turn, can be data (a static variable), or instructions (a Rust function).

Every symbol has a name assigned by the compiler. As of Rust 1.28 , the Rust compiler assigns to symbols names of the form: _ZN5krate6module8function17he1dfc17c86fe16daE, which demangles to krate::module::function::he1dfc17c86fe16da where krate::module::function is the path of the function or variable and he1dfc17c86fe16da is some sort of hash. The Rust compiler will place each symbol into its own and unique section; for example the symbol mentioned before will be placed in a section named .text._ZN5krate6module8function17he1dfc17c86fe16daE.

These compiler generated symbol and section names are not guaranteed to remain constant across different releases of the Rust compiler. However, the language lets us control symbol names and section placement via these attributes:

• #[export_name = "foo"] sets the symbol name to foo.
• #[no_mangle] means: use the function or variable name (not its full path) as its symbol name. #[no_mangle] fn bar() will produce a symbol named bar.
• #[link_section = ".bar"] places the symbol in a section named .bar.

With these attributes, we can expose a stable ABI of the program and use it in the linker script.

Like mentioned before, for Cortex-M devices, we need to populate the first two entries of the vector table. The first one, the initial value for the stack pointer, can be populated using only the linker script. The second one, the reset vector, needs to be created in Rust code and placed correctly using the linker script.

The reset vector is a pointer into the reset handler. The reset handler is the function that the device will execute after a system reset, or after it powers up for the first time. The reset handler is always the first stack frame in the hardware call stack; returning from it is undefined behavior as there's no other stack frame to return to. We can enforce that the reset handler never returns by making it a divergent function, which is a function with signature fn(/* .. */) -> !.

# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#fn main() {
#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe extern "C" fn Reset() -> ! {
    let _x = 42;

    // can't return so we go into an infinite loop here
    loop {}
}

// The reset vector, a pointer into the reset handler
#[link_section = ".vector_table.reset_vector"]
#[no_mangle]
pub static RESET_VECTOR: unsafe extern "C" fn() -> ! = Reset;

#}

The hardware expects a certain format here, to which we adhere by using extern "C" to tell the compiler to lower the function using the C ABI, instead of the Rust ABI, which is unstable.

To refer to the reset handler and reset vector from the linker script, we need them to have a stable symbol name so we use #[no_mangle]. We need fine control over the location of RESET_VECTOR, so we place it in a known section, .vector_table.reset_vector. The exact location of the reset handler itself, Reset, is not important. We just stick to the default compiler generated section.

Also, the linker will ignore symbols with internal linkage, AKA internal symbols, while traversing the list of input object files, so we need our two symbols to have external linkage. The only way to make a symbol external in Rust is to make its corresponding item public (pub) and reachable (no private module between the item and the root of the crate).

Below is shown a minimal linker script that places the vector table in the right location. Let's walk through it.

$ cat link.x

/* Memory layout of the LM3S6965 microcontroller */
/* 1K = 1 KiBi = 1024 bytes */
MEMORY
{
  FLASH : ORIGIN = 0x00000000, LENGTH = 256K
  RAM : ORIGIN = 0x20000000, LENGTH = 64K
}

/* The entry point is the reset handler */
ENTRY(Reset);

EXTERN(RESET_VECTOR);

SECTIONS
{
  .vector_table ORIGIN(FLASH) :
  {
    /* First entry: initial Stack Pointer value */
    LONG(ORIGIN(RAM) + LENGTH(RAM));

    /* Second entry: reset vector */
    KEEP(*(.vector_table.reset_vector));
  } > FLASH

  .text :
  {
    *(.text .text.*);
  } > FLASH

  /DISCARD/ :
  {
    *(.ARM.exidx.*);
  }
}

This section of the linker script describes the location and size of blocks of memory in the target. Two memory blocks are defined: FLASH and RAM; they correspond to the physical memory available in the target. The values used here correspond to the LM3S6965 microcontroller.

Here we indicate to the linker that the reset handler -- whose symbol name is Reset -- is the entry point of the program. Linkers aggressively discard unused sections. Linkers consider the entry point and functions called from it as used so they won't discard them. Without this line, the linker would discard the Reset function and all subsequent functions called from it.

Linkers are lazy; they will stop looking into the input object files once they have found all the symbols that are recursively referenced from the entry point. EXTERN forces the linker to look for EXTERN's argument even after all other referenced symbols have been found. As a rule of thumb, if you need a symbol that's not called from the entry point to always be present in the output binary, you should use EXTERN in conjunction with KEEP.

This part describes how sections in the input object files, AKA input sections, are to be arranged in the sections of the output object file, AKA output sections; or if they should be discarded. Here we define two output sections:

  .vector_table ORIGIN(FLASH) : { /* .. */ } > FLASH

.vector_table, which contains the vector table and is located at the start of FLASH memory,

  .text : { /* .. */ } > FLASH

and .text, which contains the program subroutines and is located somewhere in FLASH. Its start address is not specified, but the linker will place it after the previous output section, .vector_table.

The output .vector_table section contains:

    /* First entry: initial Stack Pointer value */
    LONG(ORIGIN(RAM) + LENGTH(RAM));

We'll place the (call) stack at the end of RAM (the stack is full descending; it grows towards smaller addresses) so the end address of RAM will be used as the initial Stack Pointer (SP) value. That address is computed in the linker script itself using the information we entered for the RAM memory block.

    /* Second entry: reset vector */
    KEEP(*(.vector_table.reset_vector));

Next, we use KEEP to force the linker to insert all input sections named .vector_table.reset_vector right after the initial SP value. The only symbol located in that section is RESET_VECTOR, so this will effectively place RESET_VECTOR second in the vector table.

The output .text section contains:

    *(.text .text.*);

This includes all the input sections named .text and .text.*. Note that we don't use KEEP here to let the linker discard unused sections.

Finally, we use the special /DISCARD/ section to discard

    *(.ARM.exidx.*);

input sections named .ARM.exidx.*. These sections are related to exception handling but we are not doing stack unwinding on panics and they take up space in Flash memory, so we just discard them.

Now we can link the application. For reference, here's the complete Rust program:

# #![allow(unused_variables)]
#![no_main]
#![no_std]

#fn main() {
use core::panic::PanicInfo;

// The reset handler
#[no_mangle]
pub unsafe extern "C" fn Reset() -> ! {
    let _x = 42;

    // can't return so we go into an infinite loop here
    loop {}
}

// The reset vector, a pointer into the reset handler
#[link_section = ".vector_table.reset_vector"]
#[no_mangle]
pub static RESET_VECTOR: unsafe extern "C" fn() -> ! = Reset;

#[panic_handler]
fn panic(_panic: &PanicInfo<'_>) -> ! {
    loop {}
}

#}

We have to tweak linker process to make it use our linker script. This is done passing the -C link-arg flag to rustc but there are two ways to do it: you can use the cargo-rustc subcommand instead of cargo-build as shown below:

IMPORTANT: Make sure you have the .cargo/config file that was added at the end of the last section before running this command.

$ cargo rustc -- -C link-arg=-Tlink.x

Or you can set the rustflags in .cargo/config and continue using the cargo-build subcommand. We'll do the latter because it better integrates with cargo-binutils.

# modify .cargo/config so it has these contents
$ cat .cargo/config

[target.thumbv7m-none-eabi]
rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=-Tlink.x"]

[build]
target = "thumbv7m-none-eabi"

The [target.thumbv7m-none-eabi] part says that these flags will only be used when cross compiling to that target.

Now let's inspect the output binary to confirm the memory layout looks the way we want:

$ cargo objdump --bin app -- -d -no-show-raw-insn

app:	file format ELF32-arm-little

Disassembly of section .text:
Reset:
       8:	sub	sp, #4
       a:	movs	r0, #42
       c:	str	r0, [sp]
       e:	b	#-2 <Reset+0x8>
      10:	b	#-4 <Reset+0x8>

This is the disassembly of the .text section. We see that the reset handler, named Reset, is located at address 0x8.

$ cargo objdump --bin app -- -s -section .vector_table

app:	file format ELF32-arm-little

Contents of section .vector_table:
 0000 00000120 09000000                    ... ....

This shows the contents of the .vector_table section. We can see that the section starts at address 0x0 and that the first word of the section is 0x2001_0000 (the objdump output is in little endian format). This is the initial SP value and matches the end address of RAM. The second word is 0x9; this is the thumb mode address of the reset handler. When a function is to be executed in thumb mode the first bit of its address is set to 1.

This program is a valid LM3S6965 program; we can execute it in a virtual microcontroller (QEMU) to test it out.

$ # this program will block
$ qemu-system-arm \
      -cpu cortex-m3 \
      -machine lm3s6965evb \
      -gdb tcp::3333 \
      -S \
      -nographic \
      -kernel target/thumbv7m-none-eabi/debug/app

$ # on a different terminal
$ arm-none-eabi-gdb -q target/thumbv7m-none-eabi/debug/app
Reading symbols from target/thumbv7m-none-eabi/debug/app...done.

(gdb) target remote :3333
Remote debugging using :3333
Reset () at src/main.rs:8
8       pub unsafe extern "C" fn Reset() -> ! {

(gdb) # the SP has the initial value we programmed in the vector table
(gdb) print/x $sp
$1 = 0x20010000

(gdb) step
9           let _x = 42;

(gdb) step
12          loop {}

(gdb) # next we inspect the stack variable `_x`
(gdb) print _x
$2 = 42

(gdb) print &_x
$3 = (i32 *) 0x2000fffc

(gdb) quit