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
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