Register Variables (STABS)

### 4.3 Register Variables ¶

Register variables have their own stab type, `N_RSYM` (`C_RSYM` for XCOFF), and their own symbol descriptor, ‘`r`’. The stab’s value is the number of the register where the variable data will be stored.

AIX defines a separate symbol descriptor ‘`d`’ for floating point registers. This seems unnecessary; why not just just give floating point registers different register numbers? I have not verified whether the compiler actually uses ‘`d`’.

If the register is explicitly allocated to a global variable, but not initialized, as in:

    register int g_bar asm ("%g5");

then the stab may be emitted at the end of the object file, with the other bss symbols.