llvm dev - Mar 2014 - [LLVMdev] So what's the deal with debug_frame V eh_frame

While comparing debug info between GCC and Clang I found a section
that only Clang produces and GCC never produces: debug_frame.

It seems (though I haven't verified this with absolute certainty) as
though GCC just always uses eh_frame. LLVM on the other hand sometimes
uses eh_frame and sometimes uses debug_frame.

Here's an example:

int f1();
int i = f1();
void func() { }

Compiled with -fno-exceptions -g.

The first two lines produce a global ctor.

Clang is generous enough to flag the LLVM IR function for this global
ctor ("__cxx_global_var_init") as nounwind
(tools/clang/lib/CodeGen/CGDeclCXX.cpp:246), though "func" gets
flagged as nounwind but also as uwtable (why? I don't really
understand these semantics & haven't tracked down where that attribute
gets applied)

Without 'func' in this translation unit, LLVM emits a debug_frame
section (because no functions actually need an unwind table, but we're
compiling with debug info (without debug info LLVM emits no _frame
section at all)). With 'func', LLVM switches to emitting an eh_frame
section in both (-g and no -g) cases.

GCC on the other hand emits eh_frame in all 4 cases (with and without
-g and with and without 'func' defined).

Do we need all this logic? Should we just always use eh_frame? Should
we not have the 'uwtable' attribute on 'func'? Why is
'func' different
from the global ctor in this regard?

Confused,
- David

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 05:31:05PM -0700, David Blaikie
wrote:
> While comparing debug info between GCC and Clang I found a section
> that only Clang produces and GCC never produces: debug_frame.
The advantage of using .debug_frame is that it can be easily stripped.
As the name implies, it is supposed to not change the semantic of code.
.eh_frame is used if the ABI for the current platform and language
settings requires unwinding support. If that is not the case, e.g. for
Linux/i386 compiling C (no special options) or C++ (-fno-exceptions),
the unwind support is optional and can be stripped. For NetBSD, we now
enable unwind support per default even for C, so it would always create
.eh_frame.

Joerg

On 19 March 2014 17:31, David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com>
wrote:
> While comparing debug info between GCC and Clang I found a section
> that only Clang produces and GCC never produces: debug_frame.
>
> It seems (though I haven't verified this with absolute certainty) as
> though GCC just always uses eh_frame. LLVM on the other hand sometimes
> uses eh_frame and sometimes uses debug_frame.
>
> Here's an example:
>
> int f1();
> int i = f1();
> void func() { }
>
> Compiled with -fno-exceptions -g.
>
> The first two lines produce a global ctor.
>
> Clang is generous enough to flag the LLVM IR function for this global
> ctor ("__cxx_global_var_init") as nounwind
> (tools/clang/lib/CodeGen/CGDeclCXX.cpp:246), though "func" gets
> flagged as nounwind but also as uwtable (why? I don't really
> understand these semantics & haven't tracked down where that
attribute
> gets applied)
Is this x86-64? If so, uwtable is a abi requirement. It says that that
function should have an entry in .eh_table.
> Without 'func' in this translation unit, LLVM emits a debug_frame
> section (because no functions actually need an unwind table, but we're
> compiling with debug info (without debug info LLVM emits no _frame
> section at all)). With 'func', LLVM switches to emitting an
eh_frame
> section in both (-g and no -g) cases.
>
> GCC on the other hand emits eh_frame in all 4 cases (with and without
> -g and with and without 'func' defined).
>
> Do we need all this logic? Should we just always use eh_frame? Should
> we not have the 'uwtable' attribute on 'func'? Why is
'func' different
> from the global ctor in this regard?
.debug_frame is a non-load section. It is therefore an optimization to
emit it instead of .eh_frame. It is very likely not really a relevant
one, so it might be possible to just always use .eh_frame.

Not adding uwtable for _GLOBAL__I_a might actually be a bug. I will
check what gcc does.

Cheers,
Rafael

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 10:41 AM, Rafael Espíndola
<rafael.espindola at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19 March 2014 17:31, David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com> wrote:
>> While comparing debug info between GCC and Clang I found a section
>> that only Clang produces and GCC never produces: debug_frame.
>>
>> It seems (though I haven't verified this with absolute certainty)
as
>> though GCC just always uses eh_frame. LLVM on the other hand sometimes
>> uses eh_frame and sometimes uses debug_frame.
>>
>> Here's an example:
>>
>> int f1();
>> int i = f1();
>> void func() { }
>>
>> Compiled with -fno-exceptions -g.
>>
>> The first two lines produce a global ctor.
>>
>> Clang is generous enough to flag the LLVM IR function for this global
>> ctor ("__cxx_global_var_init") as nounwind
>> (tools/clang/lib/CodeGen/CGDeclCXX.cpp:246), though "func"
gets
>> flagged as nounwind but also as uwtable (why? I don't really
>> understand these semantics & haven't tracked down where that
attribute
>> gets applied)
>
> Is this x86-64? If so, uwtable is a abi requirement. It says that that
> function should have an entry in .eh_table.
Hmm, OK then - because I've certainly seen LLVM emit object files with
no eh_frame (as in the above example, if "func" is omitted).
>
>> Without 'func' in this translation unit, LLVM emits a
debug_frame
>> section (because no functions actually need an unwind table, but
we're
>> compiling with debug info (without debug info LLVM emits no _frame
>> section at all)). With 'func', LLVM switches to emitting an
eh_frame
>> section in both (-g and no -g) cases.
>>
>> GCC on the other hand emits eh_frame in all 4 cases (with and without
>> -g and with and without 'func' defined).
>>
>> Do we need all this logic? Should we just always use eh_frame? Should
>> we not have the 'uwtable' attribute on 'func'? Why is
'func' different
>> from the global ctor in this regard?
>
> .debug_frame is a non-load section. It is therefore an optimization to
> emit it instead of .eh_frame. It is very likely not really a relevant
> one, so it might be possible to just always use .eh_frame.
>
> Not adding uwtable for _GLOBAL__I_a might actually be a bug. I will
> check what gcc does.
In my experiments GCC /always/ produced eh_frame, never debug_frame, fwiw.