Re: [PATCH] rust: Respect HOSTCC when linking for host

[Nick Desaulniers]

On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 9:38 AM Matthew Maurer <mmaurer@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 8:25 AM Nick Desaulniers
> <ndesaulniers@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > What happens if you invoke the linker directly?
> Rust unfortunately currently doesn't support invoking the linker
> directly: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/73632

Wait; does Rust have its own linker? It doesn't use the system linker?
 Perhaps that's necessary for the rust module format? If so, TIL.

> > Generally, the kernel either invokes the compiler or the linker
> > directly. (For assembler, it is typically preprocessed, as are linker
> > scripts!)  So invoking the linker directly is a common pattern in
> > kbuild.  It also makes me slightly sad if the rust compiler ends up
> > invoking a c compiler, even if it's simply to drive the linker.
> As mentioned earlier, we could pass $HOSTLD, but if the linker isn't
> named something accurate (e.g. if the linker is not named lld, but is
> lld), we need to know how to pass a flavor:
> https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/codegen-options/index.html#linker-flavor
> Would it be appropriate to just assume the linker is named correctly?

If it were not, what does failure look like?

command not found: asdfadfasdf

Seems fine to me. If the user mis-specifies HOSTLD=, then they will
get a similar error, which should be prescriptive enough for them to
figure out how exactly they're "holding it wrong."

> > For example, Android carries a downstream patch to set `-fuse-ld=lld`
> > for $KBUILD_HOSTCFLAGS, because its build environment doesn't contain
> > GNU binutils ("guilty, officer").
> Oddly, the Android kernel environment (Kleaf) is the one that I needed
> this patch to build in, but it seemed to be working without a manual
> KBUILD_HOSTCFLAGS forwarding.

Surprising that worked.

> Overall, it sounds like you'd prefer if I set this to use
> `KBUILD_HOSTLD` and `KBUILD_HOSTLDFLAGS`, and leave the linker flavor
> to autodetect?

Yes for the first two.

Dunno, what precisely is a linker flavor?  Is that like a flavor of ice cream?
Oh, right looking at your link:
https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/codegen-options/index.html#linker-flavor
Seems like if `LLVM=1` is set, or `LD=ld.lld`, or CONFIG_LD_IS_LLD, then
the flavor should be set to ld.lld, else ld.  Then the
KBUILD_HOSTLDFLAGS need to be passed, probably.

But how are there "linker flavors" like ld or ld.lld if you just said
"Rust unfortunately currently doesn't support invoking the linker
directly: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/73632";.  I'm having
trouble reconciling the two.

Can we do something more like the below?

ifdef CONFIG_LD_IS_LLD
hostrust_flags += -C linker-flavor=ld.lld
else
hostrust_flags += -C linker-flavor=ld
endif
hostrust_flags += -C linker=$(HOSTLD) <todo: figure out how to pass
KBUILD_HOSTLDFLAGS>
-- 
Thanks,
~Nick Desaulniers