The SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment variable is used in reproducible builds to set build timestamps and is generally synonymous with reproducible builds: instead of making users figure out how to pass pahole flags (e.g. explicitly setting PAHOLE_FLAGS in linux) just assume that the user wants a reproducible build if this variable is set, printing a debug message in verbose mode. The impact on build time appears to be minimal enough even if we incorrectly make this decision (on a Ryzen 7 7735HS): $ hyperfine 'sh pahole-test -j --reproducible_build' 'sh pahole-test -j1' 'sh pahole-test -j' -p 'cp .tmp_vmlinux.orig .tmp_vmlinux.btf' -m 4 Benchmark 1: sh pahole-test -j --reproducible_build Time (mean ± σ): 3.991 s ± 0.045 s [User: 7.223 s, System: 3.741 s] Range (min … max): 3.950 s … 4.042 s 4 runs Benchmark 2: sh pahole-test -j1 Time (mean ± σ): 7.083 s ± 0.095 s [User: 4.805 s, System: 2.242 s] Range (min … max): 6.964 s … 7.191 s 4 runs Benchmark 3: sh pahole-test -j Time (mean ± σ): 3.858 s ± 0.089 s [User: 13.447 s, System: 7.078 s] Range (min … max): 3.763 s … 3.978 s 4 runs Summary sh pahole-test -j ran 1.03 ± 0.03 times faster than sh pahole-test -j --reproducible_build 1.84 ± 0.05 times faster than sh pahole-test -j1 Where pahole-test is the pahole command of the linux build (minus -j): LLVM_OBJCOPY=objcopy pahole -J --btf_gen_floats --lang_exclude=rust --skip_encoding_btf_inconsistent_proto --btf_gen_optimized .tmp_vmlinux.btf "$@" And .tmp_vmlinux.orig was the .tmp_vmlinux.btf binary before being processed: ld -m elf_x86_64 -z noexecstack --no-warn-rwx-segments --emit-relocs --discard-none -z max-page-size=0x200000 --build-id=sha1 --orphan-handling=warn --script=./arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds -o .tmp_vmlinux.btf --whole-archive vmlinux.a .vmlinux.export.o init/version-timestamp.o --no-whole-archive --start-group --end-group Signed-off-by: Dominique Martinet <asmadeus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- v1 -> v2: - added message in verbose mode if setting reproducible build through this. I wasn't quite sure what is least intrusive message-wise -- most verbose messages just go to stdout, but using pahole in a script to extract some c structs would see this mangled in output which is obviously not great. Since --reproducible_build only impacts BTF generation at this time, I'm only checking when generating BTF to avoid such needless messages -- btf generation always goes through a file so there is no risk of mangling the output in this case. pahole.c | 9 +++++++++ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+) diff --git a/pahole.c b/pahole.c index c866095c8be6..2792e11265d6 100644 --- a/pahole.c +++ b/pahole.c @@ -3705,6 +3705,15 @@ int main(int argc, char *argv[]) goto out; } + // SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH being set means whoever called us likeely tries + // to do a reproducible build. The setting only impacts btf_encode code + // so only check in this case to avoid needless messages. + if (btf_encode && getenv("SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH")) { + if (!conf_load.reproducible_build && global_verbose) + printf("pahole: auto-enabling reproducible build (SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH set)\n"); + conf_load.reproducible_build = true; + } + if (languages.str && parse_languages()) return rc; -- 2.45.1