Directives Reference
7-64 Copyright © 2000, 2001 ARM Limited. A ll rights reserved. ARM DUI 0068B
7.7.15 KEEP
The
KEEP
directive instructs the assembler to retain local symbols in the symbol table in
the object file.
Syntax
KEEP {symbol}
where:
symbol
is the name of the local symbol to keep. If
symbol
is not specified, all local
symbols are kept except register-relative symbols.
Usage
By default, the only symbols that the assembler describes in its output object file are:
•exported symbols
•symbols that are relocated against.
Use
KEEP
to preserve local symbols that can be used to help debugging. Kept symbols
appear in the ARM debuggers and in linker map files.
KEEP
cannot preserve register-relative symbols (see MAP on page7-15).
Example
label ADC r2,r3,r4
KEEP label ; makes label available to debuggers
ADD r2,r2,r5