9.54.5.7 absolute-literals

The absolute-literals and no-absolute-literals directives control the absolute vs. PC-relative mode for L32R instructions. These are relevant only for Xtensa configurations that include the absolute addressing option for L32R instructions.

    .begin [no-]absolute-literals
    .end [no-]absolute-literals

These directives do not change the L32R mode—they only cause the assembler to emit the appropriate kind of relocation for L32R instructions and to place the literal values in the appropriate section. To change the L32R mode, the program must write the LITBASE special register. It is the programmer’s responsibility to keep track of the mode and indicate to the assembler which mode is used in each region of code.

If the Xtensa configuration includes the absolute L32R addressing option, the default is to assume absolute L32R addressing unless the ‘--no-absolute-literals’ command-line option is specified. Otherwise, the default is to assume PC-relative L32R addressing. The absolute-literals directive can then be used to override the default determined by the command-line options.