+SUBSUBSECTION
+ Coff long section names
+
+ In the standard Coff object format, section names are limited to
+ the eight bytes available in the @code{s_name} field of the
+ @code{SCNHDR} section header structure. The format requires the
+ field to be NUL-padded, but not necessarily NUL-terminated, so
+ the longest section names permitted are a full eight characters.
+
+ The Microsoft PE variants of the Coff object file format add
+ an extension to support the use of long section names. This
+ extension is defined in section 4 of the Microsoft PE/COFF
+ specification (rev 8.1). If a section name is too long to fit
+ into the section header's @code{s_name} field, it is instead
+ placed into the string table, and the @code{s_name} field is
+ filled with a slash ("/") followed by the ASCII decimal
+ representation of the offset of the full name relative to the
+ string table base.
+
+ Note that this implies that the extension can only be used in object
+ files, as executables do not contain a string table. The standard
+ specifies that long section names from objects emitted into executable
+ images are to be truncated.
+
+ However, as a GNU extension, BFD can generate executable images
+ that contain a string table and long section names. This
+ would appear to be technically valid, as the standard only says
+ that Coff debugging information is deprecated, not forbidden,
+ and in practice it works, although some tools that parse PE files
+ expecting the MS standard format may become confused; @file{PEview} is
+ one known example.
+
+ The functionality is supported in BFD by code implemented under
+ the control of the macro @code{COFF_LONG_SECTION_NAMES}. If not
+ defined, the format does not support long section names in any way.
+ If defined, it is used to initialise a flag,
+ @code{_bfd_coff_long_section_names}, and a hook function pointer,
+ @code{_bfd_coff_set_long_section_names}, in the Coff backend data
+ structure. The flag controls the generation of long section names
+ in output BFDs at runtime; if it is false, as it will be by default
+ when generating an executable image, long section names are truncated;
+ if true, the long section names extension is employed. The hook
+ points to a function that allows the value of the flag to be altered
+ at runtime, on formats that support long section names at all; on
+ other formats it points to a stub that returns an error indication.
+
+ With input BFDs, the flag is set according to whether any long section
+ names are detected while reading the section headers. For a completely
+ new BFD, the flag is set to the default for the target format. This
+ information can be used by a client of the BFD library when deciding
+ what output format to generate, and means that a BFD that is opened
+ for read and subsequently converted to a writeable BFD and modified
+ in-place will retain whatever format it had on input.
+
+ If @code{COFF_LONG_SECTION_NAMES} is simply defined (blank), or is
+ defined to the value "1", then long section names are enabled by
+ default; if it is defined to the value zero, they are disabled by
+ default (but still accepted in input BFDs). The header @file{coffcode.h}
+ defines a macro, @code{COFF_DEFAULT_LONG_SECTION_NAMES}, which is
+ used in the backends to initialise the backend data structure fields
+ appropriately; see the comments for further detail.
+