Symbol table
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In computer science, a symbol table is a data structure used by a language translator such as a compiler or interpreter, where each symbol in a program's source code is associated with information such as location, type and scope level.
A hash table implementation of a symbol table is common and the table is usually maintained throughout all phases of translation.
A symbol table can be a transient structure used only during a language translation process and then discarded, or it can be embedded in the output of that process for later exploitation, for example, during an interactive debugging session, or as a resource for formatting a diagnostic report during or after execution of a program.
"Symbol" in Symbol table , can refer to a variable or a function or a data type in the source code. So for reference purposes, this symbol will be defined in terms of "sections and offset". (where section is (1) data section (2) bss section (3) text/code section (4) stack (5) heap .
This symbol table is part of every object file and during linking of different object files; it is the linker's responsibility to resolve any unresolved references.Template:Comp-sci-stub