GNU Assembler Code Snippet Question

[Banana Slug]

Hello, I'm new to the format of the GNU assembler. Please see snippet below: The third entry of the IVT is the software interrupt vector. It points to _software_interrupt vector. What I'm not clear on is what the following statement does:

_software_interrupt: .word software_interrupt

I'm assuming that it is assigning the label _software_interrupt with the value of the software_interrupt label which is where the actual ISR is located. Couldn't this have been does as follows in the IVT without the interim step?

ldr pc, software_interrupt


Code snippet:

/** Interrupt vector Table (IVT) **/
.globl_start
_start: b reset
ldr pc, _undefined_instruction
ldr pc, _software_interrupt
ldr pc, _prefetch_abort
ldr pc, _data_abort
ldr pc, _not_used
ldr pc, _irq
ldr pc, _fiq
.
.
_software_interrupt: .word software_interrupt
.
.
.align 5
software_interrupt:
get_bad_stack
bad_save_user_regs
bl do_software_interrupt