Combined Relocation Sections

The relocation sections within relocatable objects are typically maintained in a one-to-one relationship with the sections to which the relocations must be applied. However, when an executable or shared object is built with the -z combreloc option, all but the procedure linkage table relocations are placed into a single common section named .SUNW_reloc.

Combining relocation records in this manner enables all RELATIVE relocations to be grouped together. All symbolic relocations are sorted by symbol name. The grouping of RELATIVE relocations permits optimized runtime processing using the DT_RELACOUNT/DT_RELCOUNT .dynamic entries. Sorted symbolic entries help reduce runtime symbol lookup.