The assembler treats each section as if it began at address 0. Of course, all sections cannot actually begin at address 0 in memory, so the linker must relocate sections. For COFF, all relocations are relative to address 0 in their sections. For EABI, relocations are symbol-relative rather than section-relative.

The linker can relocate sections by:

• Allocating them into the memory map so that they begin at the appropriate address as defined with the linker's MEMORY directive
• Adjusting symbol values to correspond to the new section addresses
• Adjusting references to relocated symbols to reflect the adjusted symbol values

The linker uses relocation entries to adjust references to symbol values. The assembler creates a relocation entry each time a relocatable symbol is referenced. The linker then uses these entries to patch the references after the symbols are relocated. The following example contains a code fragment for a TMS320C28x device for which the assembler generates relocation entries.

      1                        .global X
      2 00000000               .text
      3 00000000 0080'         LC      Y          ; Generates a relocation entry
        00000001 0004
      4 00000002 28A1!         MOV     AR1,#X     ; Generates a relocation entry
        00000003 0000
      5 00000004 7621  Y:      IDLE