Ralf Baechle wrote: > On Thu, Oct 11, 2007 at 11:52:30AM +0200, Franck Bui-Huu wrote: > >> Other question: I noticed that the exit.data section is not >> discarded. Could anybody give me the reason why ? > > .exit.data and .exit.text may reference each other. __exit functions > generally get compiled into .exit.text but some constructs such as jump > tables for switch() constructs may be compiled into address tables which > gcc unfortunately will put into .rodata, so .rodata will end up > referencing function addresses in .exit.text which makes ld unhappy if > .exit.text was discarded. So until this is fixed in gcc we can't > discard exit code, unfortunately. > Thanks for the details. I actually don't see any point to move these tables in .rodata since they're part of the code... > It's actually an issue which doesn't strike very often, so users who are > desparate for shrinking the kernel down could try to undo patchsets: > > 6f0b1e5d266fb1d0da019c07b56ccc02c3a4f53a > ca7402fed2a76cd5a417ac4d375a5539dcb2b6de > > and see if they can get away with it. If the final kernel link succeeds, > the build would be ok. > > I think gcc should probably put the jump table into a .subsection if > a section was explicitly requested, at least for non-PIC code. > yes that would be great, and do the same for strings, data and we could get rid of all __initxxx annotations. Franck
