[PATCH 05/23] kbuild: do not sort nm output where the order is irrelevant
From: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
Date: Tue Sep 08 2026 - 17:10:09 EST
Unless instructed otherwise, nm sorts by name.
There are places where this is unnecessary - an invocation from
scripts/sorttable every vmlinux link, scripts/check-function-names.sh run
after every vmlinux.o link, and the x86 VOFFSET and ZOFFSET listings
between vmlinux and bzImage.
Both GNU nm and llvm-nm accept the same '-p' parameter to disable sorting
in these instances, so use that to prevent this unnecessary work.
Each nm run on its own, x86-64, median of 5:
GNU nm 2.47 llvm-nm 22
before after delta before after delta
defconfig
sorttable, nm -S vmlinux 0.080s 0.039s -0.041s 0.265s 0.113s -0.152s
check-function-names.sh 0.072s 0.033s -0.039s 0.244s 0.102s -0.142s
VOFFSET 0.077s 0.034s -0.043s 0.261s 0.113s -0.148s
ZOFFSET 0.007s 0.005s -0.002s 0.005s 0.005s 0.000s
TOTAL -0.125s -0.442s
allmodconfig
sorttable, nm -S vmlinux 0.156s 0.063s -0.093s 0.539s 0.223s -0.316s
check-function-names.sh 0.149s 0.054s -0.095s 0.537s 0.217s -0.320s
VOFFSET 0.146s 0.052s -0.094s 0.524s 0.221s -0.303s
ZOFFSET 0.007s 0.005s -0.002s 0.006s 0.004s -0.002s
TOTAL -0.284s -0.941s
llvm-nm appears to be a lot slower than GNU nm, so these builds naturally
improve the most.
The four run one after another in the serial tail of every build that links
vmlinux so impact kernel builds directly.
In an allmodconfig the decompressor is built in parallel while the modules,
so only the two before the vmlinux link contribute to build time.
The build outputs remain unchanged.
Whole build, 128-thread Threadripper 9980X, median of 3:
before after delta
----------------------------------
x86 defconfig, touch mm/vma.c, gcc 10.02s 9.83s -0.19s (-2%)
x86 defconfig, touch mm/vma.c, clang 9.52s 9.24s -0.28s (-3%)
x86 defconfig, clean, gcc 28.71s 28.58s -0.13s (-0.5%)
x86 defconfig, clean, clang 28.69s 28.31s -0.38s (-1%)
x86 allmodconfig, touch mm/vma.c, cl 40.52s 39.83s -0.69s (-2%)
Assisted-by: LLM
Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <ljs@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
arch/x86/boot/Makefile | 2 +-
arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile | 2 +-
scripts/check-function-names.sh | 3 ++-
scripts/link-vmlinux.sh | 2 +-
4 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/x86/boot/Makefile b/arch/x86/boot/Makefile
index 3f9fb3698d66..4a9bce32586d 100644
--- a/arch/x86/boot/Makefile
+++ b/arch/x86/boot/Makefile
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ SETUP_OBJS = $(addprefix $(obj)/,$(setup-y))
sed-zoffset := -e 's/^\([0-9a-fA-F]*\) [a-zA-Z] \(startup_32\|efi.._stub_entry\|efi\(32\)\?_pe_entry\|input_data\|kernel_info\|_end\|_ehead\|_text\|_e\?data\|_e\?sbat\|z_.*\)$$/\#define ZO_\2 0x\1/p'
quiet_cmd_zoffset = ZOFFSET $@
- cmd_zoffset = $(NM) $< | sed -n $(sed-zoffset) > $@
+ cmd_zoffset = $(NM) -p $< | sed -n $(sed-zoffset) > $@
targets += zoffset.h
$(obj)/zoffset.h: $(obj)/compressed/vmlinux FORCE
diff --git a/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile b/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile
index 06934f9691d6..6ec5e031db1d 100644
--- a/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile
+++ b/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ HOST_EXTRACFLAGS += -I$(srctree)/tools/include
sed-voffset := -e 's/^\([0-9a-fA-F]*\) [ABbCDGRSTtVW] \(_text\|__start_rodata\|_sinittext\|__inittext_end\|__bss_start\|_end\)$$/\#define VO_\2 _AC(0x\1,UL)/p'
quiet_cmd_voffset = VOFFSET $@
- cmd_voffset = $(NM) $< | sed -n $(sed-voffset) > $@
+ cmd_voffset = $(NM) -p $< | sed -n $(sed-voffset) > $@
targets += ../voffset.h
diff --git a/scripts/check-function-names.sh b/scripts/check-function-names.sh
index 08071133e5a5..94883e690627 100755
--- a/scripts/check-function-names.sh
+++ b/scripts/check-function-names.sh
@@ -13,7 +13,8 @@ if [ ! -f "$objfile" ]; then
exit 1
fi
-bad_symbols=$(${NM:-nm} "$objfile" | awk '$2 ~ /^[TtWw]$/ {print $3}' | grep -E '^(startup|exit|split|unlikely|hot|unknown)(\.|$)')
+bad_symbols=$(${NM:-nm} -p "$objfile" | awk '$2 ~ /^[TtWw]$/ {print $3}' |
+ grep -E '^(startup|exit|split|unlikely|hot|unknown)(\.|$)')
if [ -n "$bad_symbols" ]; then
echo "$bad_symbols" | while read -r sym; do
diff --git a/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh b/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
index e88604150d2c..970ca10f8fa9 100755
--- a/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
+++ b/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
@@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ mksysmap()
sorttable()
{
- ${NM} -S ${1} > .tmp_vmlinux.nm-sort
+ ${NM} -p -S ${1} > .tmp_vmlinux.nm-sort
${objtree}/scripts/sorttable -s .tmp_vmlinux.nm-sort ${1}
}
--
2.55.0