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63<a name="Literal-Position-Directive"></a>
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65<p>
66Next: <a href="Literal-Prefix-Directive.html#Literal-Prefix-Directive" accesskey="n" rel="next">Literal Prefix Directive</a>, Previous: <a href="Literal-Directive.html#Literal-Directive" accesskey="p" rel="previous">Literal Directive</a>, Up: <a href="Xtensa-Directives.html#Xtensa-Directives" accesskey="u" rel="up">Xtensa Directives</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="AS-Index.html#AS-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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69<a name="literal_005fposition"></a>
70<h4 class="subsubsection">9.55.5.5 literal_position</h4>
71<a name="index-literal_005fposition-directive"></a>
72
73<p>When using &lsquo;<samp>--text-section-literals</samp>&rsquo; to place literals inline
74in the section being assembled, the <code>.literal_position</code> directive
75can be used to mark a potential location for a literal pool.
76</p>
77<div class="smallexample">
78<pre class="smallexample">    .literal_position
79</pre></div>
80
81<p>The <code>.literal_position</code> directive is ignored when the
82&lsquo;<samp>--text-section-literals</samp>&rsquo; option is not used or when
83<code>L32R</code> instructions use the absolute addressing mode.
84</p>
85<p>The assembler will automatically place text section literal pools
86before <code>ENTRY</code> instructions, so the <code>.literal_position</code>
87directive is only needed to specify some other location for a literal
88pool.  You may need to add an explicit jump instruction to skip over an
89inline literal pool.
90</p>
91<p>For example, an interrupt vector does not begin with an <code>ENTRY</code>
92instruction so the assembler will be unable to automatically find a good
93place to put a literal pool.  Moreover, the code for the interrupt
94vector must be at a specific starting address, so the literal pool
95cannot come before the start of the code.  The literal pool for the
96vector must be explicitly positioned in the middle of the vector (before
97any uses of the literals, due to the negative offsets used by
98PC-relative <code>L32R</code> instructions).  The <code>.literal_position</code>
99directive can be used to do this.  In the following code, the literal
100for &lsquo;<samp>M</samp>&rsquo; will automatically be aligned correctly and is placed after
101the unconditional jump.
102</p>
103<div class="smallexample">
104<pre class="smallexample">    .global M
105code_start:
106</pre><pre class="smallexample">    j continue
107    .literal_position
108    .align 4
109</pre><pre class="smallexample">continue:
110    movi    a4, M
111</pre></div>
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