4adb236867
There's a fun implementation detail on linking STB_WEAK symbols. When the linker combines two translation units, where one contains a weak function and the other an override for it. It simply strips the STB_WEAK symbol from the symbol table, but doesn't actually remove the code. The result is that when objtool is ran in a whole-archive kind of way, it will encounter *heaps* of unused (and unreferenced) code. All rudiments of weak functions. Additionally, when a weak implementation is split into a .cold subfunction that .cold symbol is left in place, even though completely unused. Teach objtool to ignore such rudiments by searching for symbol holes; that is, code ranges that fall outside the given symbol bounds. Specifically, ignore a sequence of unreachable instruction iff they occupy a single hole, additionally ignore any .cold subfunctions referenced. Both ld.bfd and ld.lld behave like this. LTO builds otoh can (and do) properly DCE weak functions. Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org> Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220308154319.232019347@infradead.org
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.