-fsection-anchors and -fdata-sections in ARM

[Mike via D.gnu]

I'm trying to track down an optimization bug.

I have written a D program and a C program that are essentially 
identical, and compiled them to assembly code with my 
arm-none-eabi-gdc/gcc build.

C Code: https://bpaste.net/show/6f420de3a892
C ASM : https://bpaste.net/show/42c75f6763bf
arm-none-eabi-gcc -O1 -S -ffunction-sections test.c -o test.s


D Code: https://bpaste.net/show/20faec5c4bb6
D ASM : https://bpaste.net/show/b2c200705d5d
arm-none-eabi-gdc -O1 -S -ffunction-sections test.d -o test.d.s

The problem is with the string literals at the very end of the 
ASM files:

C
****
.L12:
	.align	2
.L11:
	.word	.LC1
	.word	.LC2
	.word	.LC3
	.size	_start, .-_start
	.section	.rodata.str1.4,"aMS",%progbits,1
	.align	2
.LC0:
	.ascii	"\015\012\000"
	.space	1
.LC1:
	.ascii	"a\000"
	.space	2
.LC2:
	.ascii	"another string\000"
	.space	1
.LC3:
	.ascii	"do it again\000"
	.ident	"GCC: (GNU) 4.9.2"

D
****
.L6:
	.word	.LANCHOR0

... { blah blah }

.L13:
	.align	2
.L12:
	.word	.LANCHOR0
	.cantunwind
	.fnend
	.size	_D5start6_startFZv, .-_D5start6_startFZv
	.section	.rodata
	.align	2
	.set	.LANCHOR0,. + 0
.LC0:
	.ascii	"\015\012"
	.space	2
.LC1:
	.ascii	"a"
	.space	3
.LC2:
	.ascii	"another string"
	.space	2
.LC3:
	.ascii	"do it again"
	.ident	"GCC: (GNU) 4.9.2"

Notice how the D code adds the section anchor .LANCHOR0, but the 
C code does not.

The D code then refers to the sting literals with something like 
this...
ldr	r3, .L6
add	r3, sp, #16
... essentially referring to the string literal as an offset from 
.LANCHOR

This is causing a problem for me because if I put my string 
literals in separate sections (i.e. -fdata-sections), compile 
with -O1 (i.e. -fsection-anchors), and link with --gc-section, 
then the linker strips out my string literals because it doesn't 
see the link to the string literal. (At least that's my theory).

The C code, on the other hand, does not use the section anchor 
and instead seems to put them in some kind of array of strings 
like this:
.L11:
	.word	.LC1
	.word	.LC2
	.word	.LC3

Therefore, the linker can see the link to the string literals and 
doesn't strip them out (Again, that's my theory)

Can anything be done about this in GDC?

Thanks always for the help,
Mike