[PATCH] Do not use layout-before to layout atoms.

[Shankar Easwaram]

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 26, 2014, at 21:11, Chandler Carruth <chandlerc at google.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 6:30 PM, Shankar Easwaram <shankarke at gmail.com> wrote:
>> As I said before this functionality is critical for linker scripts and ELF.
> 
> Perhaps you can clarify how it is critical? I've not really been following the discussion, but so far I don't see how these are strictly interchangeable feature sets.
> 
I am sure that you might have used a linker script, but anyways below is a short explanation.

With lld when you want to move an atom to a different output section as defined in the linker script or take an order file to layout atoms, you would need to move the group of atoms that would need to move together as ELF only deals with sections. There are references within a section because of local symbols and what not.

>> 
>> If you do this in the elf writer that information would not be captured in the YAML or the native representation.
> 
> I don't see any discussion of the elf writer here. The claim seems to be that layout-before and layout-after represent the same constraint, merely expressed in two directions, and the code is simpler if it requires the constraint to always be expressed in one direction.
>  
Please see my latest reply on this.

>> 
>> I am not convinced, as long as the functionality is not exercised by having a flag, I don't see why it impacts you at this time.
> 
> The complexity of the pass impacts the project, always. You cannot hide complexity behind a flag. The question Rui is asking is why this complexity is needed.
I was talking about this mirroring the idea mentioned by Nick in a previous email thread.

Also I have replied with that I am ok to remove the kindLayoutBefore reference and the pass that deals with it. As part of that I would want to remove all references to the reference type which this patch does not address. It keeps a dangling reference in PECOFF code to make Garbage collection not collect, which in my opinion should use a different kind of reference if it's needed and not kindLayoutBefore. The kindLayoutBefore reference says to layout a atom before a particular atom and is designed to be a reference meant for the layout pass.
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