16 AOF output module

This chapter describes the ARM (or Acorn) Object Format output module which can be selected with the ‘-Faof’ option.

16.1 Legal

This module is written in 2025 by Frank Wille and is covered by the vasm copyright without modifications.

16.2 General

This module outputs the AOF object file format in version 310, as described by the ARM DUI0041C Copyright 1997, 1998 by ARM Limited. It is used by some older ARM architectures, like Acorn RISC computers or the 3DO. It supports 26- and 32-bit ARM architectures up to AA4, including Thumb mode.

16.3 Restrictions

• - 26 or 32 bits.
• - Always generates Type-2 relocations.

16.4 Known Problems

Some known problems of this module at the moment:

• - Some code area attributes are never set, because vasm is lacking the information: reentrant, software stack checking, ARM/Thumb interworking.
• - No debugging table support.
• - No entry location.
• - No strong symbols.

16.5 Error Messages

This module has the following error messages:

• - 3005: reloc type %d, size %d, mask 0x%lx (symbol %s + 0x%lx) not supported
• - 3024: section <%s>: maximum size of 0x%llx bytes exceeded (0x%llx)