[PATCH 3/6] Change the symbols order when --ffuntion-sections is enabled

From: Rong Xu
Date: Sun Jul 28 2024 - 16:31:40 EST


When the -ffunction-sections compiler option is enabled, each function
is placed in a separate section named .text.function_name rather than
putting all functions in a single .text section.

However, using -function-sections can cause problems with the
linker script. The comments included in include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h
note these issues.:
“TEXT_MAIN here will match .text.fixup and .text.unlikely if dead
code elimination is enabled, so these sections should be converted
to use ".." first.”

It is unclear whether there is a straightforward method for converting
a suffix to "..". This patch modifies the order of subsections within the
text output section when the -ffunction-sections flag is enabled.
Specifically, it repositions sections with certain fixed patterns (for
example .text.unlikely) before TEXT_MAIN, ensuring that they are grouped
and matched together.

Note that the limitation arises because the linker script employs glob
patterns instead of regular expressions for string matching. While there
is a method to maintain the current order using complex patterns, this
significantly complicates the pattern and increases the likelihood of
errors.

Co-developed-by: Han Shen <shenhan@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Han Shen <shenhan@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Rong Xu <xur@xxxxxxxxxx>
Suggested-by: Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram@xxxxxxxxxx>
Suggested-by: Krzysztof Pszeniczny <kpszeniczny@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h | 19 ++++++++++++++++---
1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h b/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h
index 5703526d6ebf..f3de66bda293 100644
--- a/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h
+++ b/include/asm-generic/vmlinux.lds.h
@@ -582,9 +582,21 @@
* during second ld run in second ld pass when generating System.map
*
* TEXT_MAIN here will match .text.fixup and .text.unlikely if dead
- * code elimination is enabled, so these sections should be converted
- * to use ".." first.
+ * code elimination or function-section is enabled. Match these symbols
+ * first when in these builds.
*/
+#if defined(CONFIG_LD_DEAD_CODE_DATA_ELIMINATION) || defined(CONFIG_LTO_CLANG)
+#define TEXT_TEXT \
+ *(.text.asan.* .text.tsan.*) \
+ *(.text.unknown .text.unknown.*) \
+ *(.text.unlikely .text.unlikely.*) \
+ ALIGN_FUNCTION(); \
+ *(.text.hot .text.hot.*) \
+ *(TEXT_MAIN .text.fixup) \
+ NOINSTR_TEXT \
+ *(.ref.text) \
+ MEM_KEEP(init.text*)
+#else
#define TEXT_TEXT \
ALIGN_FUNCTION(); \
*(.text.hot .text.hot.*) \
@@ -594,7 +606,8 @@
NOINSTR_TEXT \
*(.ref.text) \
*(.text.asan.* .text.tsan.*) \
- MEM_KEEP(init.text*) \
+ MEM_KEEP(init.text*)
+#endif


/* sched.text is aling to function alignment to secure we have same
--
2.46.0.rc1.232.g9752f9e123-goog