[llvm-dev] lld: --start-lib and --end-lib

[Rui Ueyama via llvm-dev]

I hacked up a patch to support --start-lib and --end-lib in the second way.

http://reviews.llvm.org/D18814

In this patch, I introduced a new notion, LazyObject. That is analogous to
Archive file type, but that works for a single object file instead of an
archive file. This patch is +160 and -26 lines, so I can say that it is
pretty simple.

This is not directly related to --start-lib and --end-lib, but LazyObject
may be useful for --gc-sections as well. This is the suggestion I got in
the EuroLLVM 2016 meeting (I'm sorry but I don't remember who his name),
but he suggested handling all object files as lazy object files for
--gc-sections. It means by default no object files are linked. The entry
point symbol would link one object file, and that triggers all used object
files to be instantiated. I think this is very interesting idea because we
don't need to do mark-sweep garbage collection to do --gc-sections;
instead, everything will be linked only when they are needed.

On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 7:51 PM, Rui Ueyama <ruiu at google.com> wrote:

> Rafael,
>
> You seems to be the person who added --start-lib and --end-lib to gold
> (*1), so I think you are the best person to ask about it. :)
>
> What is the intended use case of the options? Do you think we should
> support that in LLD?
>
> If we want to support that, then I think we can think of two
> implementation strategies:
>
>  - Link object files between --start-lib and --end-lib normally and
> garbage collect unused sections, or
>  - create lazy symbols for object files between --start-lib and --end-lib
> and handle just like archive files.
>
> What do you think?
>
> *1 https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2010-03/msg00233.html
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20160405/6ebc026b/attachment.html>