Man Pages

---

Back to Software Index  Manpage Top Level

Name

Synopsis

extern etext;extern edata;extern end;

Description

etext

This is the first address past the end of the text segment (the program code).

edata

This is the first address past the end of the initialized data segment.

end

This is the first address past the end of the uninitialized data segment (also known as the BSS segment).

Conforming to

Notes

On some systems the names of these symbols are preceded by underscores, thus: _etext, _edata, and _end. These symbols are also defined for programs compiled on Linux.

At the start of program execution, the program break will be somewhere near &end (perhaps at the start of the following page). However, the break will change as memory is allocated via brk(2) or malloc(3) . Use sbrk(2) with an argument of zero to find the current value of the program break.

Example

$ ./a.outFirst address past:
    program text (etext)       0x8048568
    initialized data (edata)   0x804a01c
    uninitialized data (end)   0x804a024

Program source

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
extern char etext, edata, end; /* The symbols must have some type,
                                   or "gcc -Wall" complains */
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("First address past:\n");
    printf("    program text (etext)      %10p\n", &etext);
    printf("    initialized data (edata)  %10p\n", &edata);
    printf("    uninitialized data (end)  %10p\n", &end);
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

See Also

Colophon

Table of Contents

• Name
• Synopsis
• Description
• Conforming to
• Notes
• Example
• Program source
• See Also
• Colophon