[PATCH 7/7] Add some gcc/ld optimizations and magic
David Herrmann
dh.herrmann at gmail.com
Sat Aug 17 04:58:19 PDT 2013
There are several gcc/ld flags that optimize size and performance without
requiring explicit code changes. In no particular order, this adds:
- gcc -pipe to avoid temporary files and use pipes during compilation
- gcc -fno-common avoids putting uninitialized global variables not
marked as "extern" into a common section. This catches compilation
errors if we didn't mark global variables explicitly as "extern".
- gcc -fno-strict-aliasing allows us to use unions for some binary magic.
Otherwise, -O2 might assume that two different types never point at the
same memory. We currently don't rely on this but it's common practice
so avoid any non-obvious runtime errors later.
- gcc -ffunction-sections and -fdata-sections put each function and
variable into a separate section. This enables ld's --gc-sections to
drop any unused sections (sections which aren't referenced from an
exported section). This is very useful to avoid putting dead code into
DSOs. We can now link any helper function into libevdev and the linker
removes all of them if they're unused.
- gcc -fstack-protector adds small stack-corruption protectors in
functions which have big buffers on the stack (>8bytes). If the
stack-protectors are corrupted, the process is aborted. This is highly
useful to debug stack-corruption issues which often are nearly
impossible to catch without this.
- ld --as-needed drops all linked libraries that are not actually
required by libevdev. So we can link to whatever we want and the linker
will drop everything which is not actually used.
- ld -z now, resolve symbols during linking, not during runtime.
- ld -z relro, add relocation-read-only section. This allows to put
read-only global variables and alike into a read-only section. This is
useful for variables that need a relocation and thus cannot be
explicitly put into a read-only section. This option tells the linker
to mark them read-only after relocations are done. (that's why -z now
makes sense in combination with this)
All of these options are common in other open-source projects, including
systemd and weston. Don't ask me why they are not marked as default..
Signed-off-by: David Herrmann <dh.herrmann at gmail.com>
---
configure.ac | 2 +-
libevdev/Makefile.am | 6 +++++-
2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 889ff81..b1fc179 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ fi
AM_CONDITIONAL(BUILD_TESTS, [test "x$HAVE_CHECK" = "xyes"])
if test "x$GCC" = "xyes"; then
- GCC_CFLAGS="-Wall -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -g -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -fvisibility=hidden"
+ GCC_CFLAGS="-Wall -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -g -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -fvisibility=hidden -pipe -fno-common -fno-strict-aliasing -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -fstack-protector -fno-strict-aliasing -fdiagnostics-show-option -fno-common"
fi
AC_SUBST(GCC_CFLAGS)
diff --git a/libevdev/Makefile.am b/libevdev/Makefile.am
index bd8e4fe..eedb468 100644
--- a/libevdev/Makefile.am
+++ b/libevdev/Makefile.am
@@ -11,7 +11,11 @@ libevdev_la_SOURCES = \
libevdev_la_LDFLAGS = \
-version-info $(LIBEVDEV_LT_VERSION) \
-Wl,--version-script="$(srcdir)/libevdev.sym" \
- $(GCOV_LDFLAGS)
+ $(GCOV_LDFLAGS) \
+ -Wl,--as-needed \
+ -Wl,--gc-sections \
+ -Wl,-z,relro \
+ -Wl,-z,now
EXTRA_libevdev_la_DEPENDENCIES = $(srcdir)/libevdev.sym
--
1.8.3.4
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