SLAU131V October 2004 – February 2020
In a linker command file, an assignment expression outside a MEMORY or SECTIONS directive can be used to define a linker-defined symbol. To define a weak symbol in a linker command file, use the "weak" operator in an assignment expression to designate that the symbol as eligible for removal from the output file's symbol table if it is not referenced. For example, you can define "ext_addr_sym" as follows:
weak(ext_addr_sym) = 0x12345678;
When the linker command file is used to perform the final link, then "ext_addr_sym" is presented to the linker as a weak absolute symbol; it will not be included in the resulting output file if the symbol is not referenced.
See Section 2.6.3 for details about how weak symbols are handled by the linker.