In normal situations it isn't too useful to define symbols for optional segments as those symbols can't be presumed to be always present.
I in fact suspect that most currently present combinations of 'define' and 'optional' aren't useful - apart form the overlay configurations of course.
The constructors are _NOT_ allowed anymore to access the BSS. Rather they must use the DATA segment or the INIT segment. The latter isn't cleared at any point so the constructors may use it to expose values to the main program. However they must make sure to always write the values as they are not pre-initialized.
The way we want to use the INITBSS segment - and especially the fact that it won't have the type bss on all ROM based targets - means that the name INITBSS is misleading. After all INIT is the best name from my perspective as it serves several purposes and therefore needs a rather generic name.
Unfortunately this means that the current INIT segment needs to be renamed too. Looking for a short (ideally 4 letter) name I came up with ONCE as it contains all code (and data) accessed only once during initialization.
Greg King
Oliver Schmidt