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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/26/2014 6:25 PM, Rui Ueyama wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAJENXgtMj=hjiughTQYEoWVHCxDdALr72n_d5kBuQ=+qSDZZ7w@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 4:11 PM, Shankar Easwaran
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:shankare@codeaurora.org"><shankare@codeaurora.org></a>wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap=""> On 3/26/2014 5:55 PM, Nick Kledzik wrote:
On Mar 26, 2014, at 3:37 PM, Rui Ueyama <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ruiu@google.com"><ruiu@google.com></a> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Nick Kledzik <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:kledzik@apple.com"><kledzik@apple.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
On Mar 26, 2014, at 2:56 PM, Rui Ueyama <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ruiu@google.com"><ruiu@google.com></a> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Nick Kledzik <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:kledzik@apple.com"><kledzik@apple.com></a>wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
On Mar 26, 2014, at 2:44 PM, Rui Ueyama <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ruiu@google.com"><ruiu@google.com></a> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 2:23 PM, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kledzik@apple.com">kledzik@apple.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:kledzik@apple.com"><kledzik@apple.com></a>wrote:
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Given your description of COFF, I'm not sure follow-on
atom/references is the right model.
We probably want a way to order sections. For instance, the darwin
linker automatically arranges sections for best performance.
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
Yes, follow-on atom/references model is not probably the best model
for COFF. It's too fine grained. The unit of layout is not an atom (symbol)
but a section. We never want to rearrange or dead-strip each atom. AFAIK so
is true for ELF and Mach-O.
The darwin linker very much dead strips and re-orders mach-o at the
atom level.
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
Maybe silly question, but how are dependencies between symbols (atoms)
represented in Mach-O? I mean, if function A in .text have a relative call
instructions to function B in the same .text section, both functions needs
to be in the final executable keeping the same offset.
The call instruction has a relocation on it, so if the target moves
(relatively), the linker updates the call instruction.
In more detail, the linker parses the call instruction and relocation
and adds to A, a Reference to B. Then everything proceeds as an atom
graph, including dead stripping and re-ordering. In the writer, after
atoms that remain are assigned addresses, the writer sees the reference in
A to B, it knows the address of both, so it fixes up the call instruction
given those final addresses.
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
Thank you for the explanation. That sounds like a different semantics
than COFF indeed. In COFF we don't usually have relocations within a
section, so a section is a basic unit and we can't reorder or remove data
in it. If you want to reorder and dead-strip each function, you have to
specify /Gy (equivalent to -ffunction-section) to put each function in its
own section.
Do you know if we really use layout-after's in ELF to order atoms? It
seems to me that the default sorting function orders them correctly,
according to atom's ordinal, file ordinal, etc. Is there any case that we
are doing more than that using layout-after edges?
You’ll have to ask Shankar what problem he was trying to solve with the
layout before/after stuff.
ELF does not use layout-before references, it uses only layout-after
and in-group references. The reason the ELF linker tried to do this was
a) Prevent reordering of atoms and maintain section relationship. All
atoms in a section have to be tied together. Anything that tries to reorder
has to reorder the whole section.
b) This also would clearly model linker scripts in the future that moving
a function would make sure the section that contains the function is moved,
and not the individual function.
This was earlier discussed in the thread :
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20121022/154212.html">http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/pipermail/llvm-commits/Week-of-Mon-20121022/154212.html</a>
I would like to have the kindLayoutBefore/kindLayoutAfter/kindInGroup
references to exist and do the functionalities that it is trying to
accomplish.
This could be used when we want to implement the order file in the near
future.
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
Is there anything that is presently depending on layout-after and in-group,
which does not work with the default ordering function, compareAtomsSub()?
I don't intend to say that that wouldn't be needed for ELF, but just trying
to understand.
As to the feature set that LayoutPass provides, we shouldn't keep this
complexity as is as I repeatedly stated, because as I sayd multiple times
it seems that this level of complexity is not (and will not) needed.</pre>
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Tell me another way to accomplish the same thing that I would want
to order atoms with a linker script ?<br>
<br>
How can I make sure the section that contains the atoms are moved as
a group without this change ?<br>
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cite="mid:CAJENXgtMj=hjiughTQYEoWVHCxDdALr72n_d5kBuQ=+qSDZZ7w@mail.gmail.com"
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<pre wrap="">
Specifically, layout-before relationship is not really needed for ay
occasion to layout atoms -- in all cases when you want to layout atom A
before B, you can just add "layout-after to A" to B instead. Dead-stripping
path would still need doubly-linked graph, but it does not mean that
layout-pass needs to use it too.</pre>
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I think I have said many times as well, again ELF uses <b>only</b>
layout-after and in-group.<br>
<br>
You cannot model weak symbols with just layout-after reference
alone. You cannot have a Layout After reference to a weak symbol, as
when the weak symbol could be overridden.<br>
<br>
To make function alias symbols, ELF needs kindLayoutBefore
reference, so that the linker can easily setup an alias to a
function(the +afs option).<br>
<br>
The alias symbols are again zero sized symbols that are defined
through the command-line.<br>
<br>
Thanks<br>
<br>
Shankar Easwaran<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of Code Aurora Forum, hosted by the Linux Foundation</pre>
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