1<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
2<html>
3<!-- Copyright (C) 1992-2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4Contributed by Cygnus Support.  Written by Julia Menapace, Jim Kingdon,
5and David MacKenzie.
6
7Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
8under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
9any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
10Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
11Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU
12Free Documentation License". -->
13<!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 5.1, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ -->
14<head>
15<title>STABS: Common Blocks</title>
16
17<meta name="description" content="STABS: Common Blocks">
18<meta name="keywords" content="STABS: Common Blocks">
19<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
20<meta name="distribution" content="global">
21<meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo">
22<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
23<link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top">
24<link href="Symbol-Types-Index.html#Symbol-Types-Index" rel="index" title="Symbol Types Index">
25<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
26<link href="Variables.html#Variables" rel="up" title="Variables">
27<link href="Statics.html#Statics" rel="next" title="Statics">
28<link href="Register-Variables.html#Register-Variables" rel="previous" title="Register Variables">
29<style type="text/css">
30<!--
31a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none}
32blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller}
33div.display {margin-left: 3.2em}
34div.example {margin-left: 3.2em}
35div.indentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em}
36div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
37div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em}
38div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em}
39div.smallindentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em; font-size: smaller}
40div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
41kbd {font-style:oblique}
42pre.display {font-family: inherit}
43pre.format {font-family: inherit}
44pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif}
45pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif}
46pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
47pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller}
48pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
49pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller}
50span.nocodebreak {white-space:nowrap}
51span.nolinebreak {white-space:nowrap}
52span.roman {font-family:serif; font-weight:normal}
53span.sansserif {font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal}
54ul.no-bullet {list-style: none}
55-->
56</style>
57
58
59</head>
60
61<body lang="en" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#800080" alink="#FF0000">
62<a name="Common-Blocks"></a>
63<div class="header">
64<p>
65Next: <a href="Statics.html#Statics" accesskey="n" rel="next">Statics</a>, Previous: <a href="Register-Variables.html#Register-Variables" accesskey="p" rel="previous">Register Variables</a>, Up: <a href="Variables.html#Variables" accesskey="u" rel="up">Variables</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Symbol-Types-Index.html#Symbol-Types-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
66</div>
67<hr>
68<a name="Common-Blocks-1"></a>
69<h3 class="section">4.4 Common Blocks</h3>
70
71<p>A common block is a statically allocated section of memory which can be
72referred to by several source files.  It may contain several variables.
73I believe Fortran is the only language with this feature.
74</p>
75<a name="index-N_005fBCOMM"></a>
76<a name="index-N_005fECOMM"></a>
77<a name="index-C_005fBCOMM"></a>
78<a name="index-C_005fECOMM"></a>
79<p>A <code>N_BCOMM</code> stab begins a common block and an <code>N_ECOMM</code> stab
80ends it.  The only field that is significant in these two stabs is the
81string, which names a normal (non-debugging) symbol that gives the
82address of the common block.  According to IBM documentation, only the
83<code>N_BCOMM</code> has the name of the common block (even though their
84compiler actually puts it both places).
85</p>
86<a name="index-N_005fECOML"></a>
87<a name="index-C_005fECOML"></a>
88<p>The stabs for the members of the common block are between the
89<code>N_BCOMM</code> and the <code>N_ECOMM</code>; the value of each stab is the
90offset within the common block of that variable.  IBM uses the
91<code>C_ECOML</code> stab type, and there is a corresponding <code>N_ECOML</code>
92stab type, but Sun&rsquo;s Fortran compiler uses <code>N_GSYM</code> instead.  The
93variables within a common block use the &lsquo;<samp>V</samp>&rsquo; symbol descriptor (I
94believe this is true of all Fortran variables).  Other stabs (at least
95type declarations using <code>C_DECL</code>) can also be between the
96<code>N_BCOMM</code> and the <code>N_ECOMM</code>.
97</p>
98
99
100
101</body>
102</html>
103