[LLVMdev] LLD improvement plan

[Michael Spencer]

On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Rui Ueyama <ruiu at google.com> wrote:
> Caveat Why not define a section as an atom and keep using the atom model? If
> we do this, we would have to allow atoms to have more than one name. Each
> name would have an offset in the atom (to represent symbols whose offset
> from the section start is not zero). But still we need to copy section
> attributes to each atom. The resulting model no longer looks like the atom
> model, but a mix of the atom model and the section model, and that comes
> with the cost of both designs. I think it’s too complicated.

Rafael and I have been discussing this change recently. It makes atoms
actually atomic, and also splits out symbols, which has been needed.
The main reason I like this over each target having its own model is
because it gives us a common textual representation to write tests
with.

As for symbol resolution. It seems the actual problem is name lookup,
not the core resolver semantics.

I'd rather not end up with basically 3 separate linkers in lld.

- Michael Spencer