What is _GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE?

Question

Using the nm command in Linux to see the symbols in my program, I see a symbol by the name _GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE_ as shown below. Can somebody elaborate what is

Answer 1

_GLOBAL_OFFSET_TABLE_ is used to locate the real addresses of globals (functions, variables etc) for PIC (Position-Independent Code), its commonly referred to as the GOT, you can read up on it here and a more indepth one here.