Re: [PATCH v2 3/6] Change the symbols order when --ffuntion-sections is enabled

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Wed, Oct 02, 2024 at 04:34:02PM -0700, Rong Xu wrote:
> 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.

Is there a down-side to using the new order unconditionally?