llvm dev - May 2020 - Range lists, zero-length functions, linker gc

On 2020-05-28, David Blaikie wrote:
>On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 2:52 PM Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at
sony.com>
>wrote:
>
>> As has been mentioned elsewhere, Sony generally fixes up references
from
>> debug info to stripped functions (of any length) using -1, because
that’s a
>> less-likely-to-be-real address than 0x0 or 0x1.  (0x0 is a typical base
>> address for shared libraries, I’d think using it has the potential to
>> mislead various consumers.)  For .debug_ranges we use -2, because both
a
>> 0/0 pair and a -1/-1 pair have a reserved meaning in that section.
>>
>
>Any harm in using -2 everywhere, for consistency?
When resolving a relocation, in certain cases we have to give an undefined
symbol a value.
This can happen with:

* an undefined weak symbol
* an undefined global symbol in --noinhibit-exec mode (a buggy --gc-sections
implementation can trigger this as well)
* a relocation referencing an undefined symbol in a non-SHF_ALLOC section

We always respect the addend in a relocation entry for an absolute/PC-relative
(I can use "most" here)
relocation (R_ARM_THM_PC8, R_AARCH64_ADR_PREL_PG_HI21, R_X86_64_64,
local exec TLS relocation types, ...)
Ignoring the addend (using -2 everywhere) will break this consistency.

The relocated code may do pointer subtraction which would work if addends were
respected, but will break using -2 everywhere.

The relocated code can be allocatable or not. Non-allocatable non-debug
code can have meaningful pointer subtraction as well. This is why I am
not too fond of (using a fixed value everywhere).
>(also, I had a silly idea, but what would happen if we added a CU attribute
>with an address value that was a reference to a weak always-unused symbol,
>that way the linker would fix it up with whatever its preferred magic value
>was, and the consumer would then know what the magic value was that
>represented dead code? (though this would only work if the value were used
>consistently everywhere - which is zero for gold/lld (well, almost... you
>can still create situations where a non-zero value is used even for a
>low_pc), but wouldn't work for binutils ld (1 in debug_ranges, 0
elsewhere)
>or Sony (-2 in debug_ranges, -1 elsewhere)... - so, wouldn't actually
work
>for any producer currently, so maybe there's little value in that as a
>feature))
For a non-SHF_ALLOC section, LLD currently considers it a GC root if all
the conditions below are satisfied:

* not SHT_REL[A]
* not SHF_LINK_ORDER
* not in a section group

(I managed to lobby the ideas to GNU ld. GNU ld from binutils 2.35
onwards will have mostly compatible semantics with LLD)

There is a cost fragmenting a .debug_* section: sizeof(Elf64_Shdr)=64 ->
each section takes 64 bytes in the section header table. SHF_LINK_ORDER
has semantics of a lightweight section group. Assume we don't want to
have one .debug_* for each function section, this .debug_* will be a GC
root. Relocations from it (even if the symbol is weak) will retain the
sections defining the symbols.

So, this trick can't work without refining the --gc-sections rules further.
>
>>  If you’re looking only at zero-length functions, you can stop there;
but
>> I’m not sure why stopping there solves much of a real problem, as
>> zero-length functions seem like a weird corner case.
>>
>
>They're the case that breaks existing usage by terminating the range
list
>early - the other existing usage seems to be fine with "resolve to
addend"
>strategy that lld and gold use - in that it moves most dead/deduplicated
>functions outside the executable range and so consumers never come asking
>for "what code is at instruction 5" because they're never
executing code at
>a pc of 5. But, yes, this existing solution doesn't work once you have
code
>mapped into low address spaces or have utterly massive functions that might
>have a length that would reach into the executable address space even when
>their start is remapped to zero.
For posterity, David gave me an example offline: void f1() { } void f2() { } int
main() { f1(); }

clang -fuse-ld=bfd -ffunction-sections -Wl,--gc-sections -g a.c -o a.bfd
llvm-dwarfdump -debug-ranges a.bfd
=>
R_X86_64_64 relocations in .debug_ranges are resolved to 1, ignoring the addend

(Behavior introduced in
https://sourceware.org/git/?p=binutils-gdb.git;a=blobdiff;f=bfd/ChangeLog;h=8fbaed21fa2c8238459acb637545583f3cfbbfdf;hp=18a3a67be3a5980998c4461b5a739e54f3551b17;hb=e4067dbb2a3368dbf908b39c5435c84d51abc9f3;hpb=c0621d88b096cc046adf6ed484baea9ba5bfe721)

The comments below are also insightful. I need to ponder more (and need
to read the DWARF v4 and v5 specs more as I am not so familiar these
DWARF constructs). But it is too late now. Will probably comment
another day :)
>
>> Linkers know how to strip dead functions (gc) or deduplicate them (icf,
>> COMDAT) and people do this all the time, in some cases (COMDAT) without
>> explicitly asking for it, so non-zero-length functions seem like the
much
>> more interesting case.  In that situation, -1 (or -2) seems like a much
>> wiser choice of blessed-as-not-real address, versus 0x0 or 0x1.
>>
>>
>>
>> Stripping non-zero-length functions does mean you have to care about
more
>> sections.  For example .debug_locs would want to be fixed up the same
way
>> as .debug_ranges, not because a debugger would care but so that dumpers
>> would not run into the 0/0 brick wall.
>>
>
>Yep - in theory a consumer could actually use a loclist across multiple
>sections (if a global variable got hoisted into a register for a function
>for instance), but I don't know of any producers doing this today -
until
>then, yeah, it's just a dumping problem and ld.bfd does produce DWARF
that
>has that problem (because it resolves both relocations to dead code
>(begin/end of a range) to zero in all sections except debug_ranges, so
>terminates the loclist list early) - binutils objdump avoids dumping the
>following corrupted fragment by only dumping hunks of debug_loc starting at
>places referenced from debug_info. Without debug_info it won't dump
>anything from debug_loc - and if the references from debug_info, parsed
>until the 0,0 terminator don't cover the whole debug_loc section, it
prints
>messages saying there are "gaps".
>
>Agreed that you'd want debug_loc to have the same special handling as
>debug_ranges if it has special handling. Though ideally we'd pick a
value
>that works equally everywhere? (-2, by the sounds of it)
>
>
>> We also fix up lengths in .debug_aranges to zero, although there might
be
>> history behind that tactic that I’m not aware of; it seems like it
ought to
>> be unnecessary, if consumers are aware of the special address(es).
>>
>
>Yeah, no idea about debug_aranges... I'd have thought it'd be fine
with the
>same approach as debug_ranges, but I haven't looked at debug_aranges in
a
>long time.
>
>I guess the only remaining question is: Since it's possible to have code
on
>some systems down at address zero, or close enough to it that [0, length)
>might overlap with real exxecutable code addresses - does anyone know of
>the inverse: where code is mapped up near uint32 max? Such that that usage
>wouldn't be able to sacrifice uint32 max - 1 to use as a blessed value
here?
>
>- Dave
>
>
>>
>>
>> --paulr
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Alexey Lapshin <alapshin at accesssoftek.com>
>> *Sent:* Thursday, May 28, 2020 9:03 AM
>> *To:* Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at google.com>; Wei Mi <wmi at
google.com>;
>> Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>; Adrian Prantl
<aprantl at apple.com>;
>> Jonas Devlieghere <jdevlieghere at apple.com>; Alexey Lapshin
<
>> a.v.lapshin at mail.ru>; Eric Christopher <echristo at
gmail.com>; Fangrui Song
>> <maskray at google.com>; David Blaikie <dblaikie at
gmail.com>;
>> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions, linker gc
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi David,
>>
>>
>>
>> >So there have been several recent discussions about the issues
around
>>
>> >DWARF-agnostic linking and gc-sections, linkonce function
definitions
>> being
>>
>> >dropped, etc - and just how much DWARF-awareness would be suitable
>>
>> >in a linker to help with this situation.
>>
>>
>> > I'd like to discuss a narrower instance of this issue: Zero
length
>> gc'd/deduplicated functions.
>>
>> > LLVM seems to at least produce zero length functions in a few
cases:
>> > * non-void function without a return statement
>> > * function definition containing only llvm_unreachable
>> > (both of these trap at -O0, but at higher optimization levels even
the
>> trap
>>
>> > instruction is removed & you get the full power UB of control
>> flowing off
>>
>> > the end of the function into whatever other bytes are after that
>> function)
>>
>> > So, for context, debug_ranges (this whole issue doesn't exist
in
>> DWARFv5,
>>
>> > FWIW) is a list of address pairs, terminated by a pair of zeros.
>>
>> > With function sections, or even just with normal C++ inline
functions,
>>
>> > the CU will have a range entry for that function that consists of
two
>> relocations
>>
>> > - to the start and end of the function. Generally the start of the
>> function is the
>>
>> > start of the section, and the end is "start of function +
length of
>> function (aka addend)".
>>
>> >  Usually any relocation to the section would keep that section
"alive"
>> during linking -
>>
>> > but that would cause debug info to defeat linker GC and
deduplication.
>> So there's
>>
>> > special rules for how linkers handle these relocations in debug
info to
>> allow the
>>
>> > sections to be dropped - what do you write in the bytes that
requested
>> the relocation?
>>
>> > Binutils ld: Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving all
relocations
>> to dead
>>
>> > code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are all resolved
to
>> zero.
>>
>> > Gold and lld: Special cases all debug info sections - resolving
all
>> relocations
>>
>> > to "addend" (so begin usually goes to zero, end goes to
"size of
>> function")
>>
>> > These special rules are designed to ensure
omitted/gc'd/deduplicated
>> functions
>>
>> > don't cause the range list to terminate prematurely (which
would happen
>> if begin/end
>>
>> > were both resolved to zero).
>>
>> >But with an empty function, gold and lld's strategy here fails
to avoid
>> terminating a
>>
>> >range list by accident.
>>
>> > What should we do about it?
>>
>> >  1) Ensure no zero-length functions exist? (doesn't address
backwards
>>
>> > compatibility/existing functions/other compilers)
>> > 2) adopt the binutils approach to this (at least in debug_ranges -
maybe
>> in all
>>
>> > debug sections? (doing it in other sections could break )
>> >  3) Revisit the discussion about using an even more
'blessed' value,
>>
>> > like int max-1? ( https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553
>>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$>
>>  )
>>
>> >  (I don't have links to all the recent threads about this
discussion - I
>> think D59553
>>
>> > might've spawned a separate broader discussion/non-review -
oh, Alexey
>> wrote a
>>
>> > good summary with links to other discussions here:
>>
>> > 
http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2019-September/135068.html
>>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2019-September/135068.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY638NIRu2g$>
>>  )
>>
>> > Thoughts?
>>
>>
>>
>> I think for the problem of "zero length functions and
.debug_ranges"
>> binutils approach looks good:
>>
>> >Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving all relocations to
>> >dead code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are all
resolved to
>> >zero.
>>
>> But, this would not completely solve the problem from
>> https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553
>>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$>
>> - Overlapped address ranges. Binutils approach will solve the problem
if
>> the address range specified as start_address:end_address. While
resolving
>> relocations, it would replace such a range with 1:1.
>> However, It would not work if address ranges were specified as
>> start_address:length since the length is not relocated. This case could
be
>> additionally fixed by fast scan debug_info for High_PC defined as
length
>> and changing it to 1. Something which you suggested here:
>> http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2020-May/141599.html
>>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/2020-May/141599.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63PsubKJQ$>
>> .
>>
>> So it looks like following solution could fix both problems and be
>> relatively fast:
>>
>> "Resolve all relocations from debug sections into dead code to 1.
Parse
>> debug sections and replace HighPc of an address range pointing to dead
code
>> and specified as length to 1".
>>
>> As the result all address ranges pointing into dead code would be
marked
>> as zero length.
>>
>> There still exist another problem:
>>
>> DWARF4: "A range list entry (but not a base address selection or
end of
>> list entry) whose beginning and
>> ending addresses are equal has no effect because the size of the range
>> covered by such an
>> entry is zero."
>>
>> DWARF5: "A bounded range entry whose beginning and ending address
offsets
>> are equal
>> (including zero) indicates an empty range and may be ignored."
>>
>> These rules allow us to ignore zero-length address ranges. I.e., some
tool
>> reading DWARF is permitted to ignore related DWARF entries. In that
case,
>> there could be ignored essential descriptions. That problem could
happen
>> with -flto=thin example https://reviews.llvm.org/D54747#1503720
>>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D54747*1503720__;Iw!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY637ju_eQw$>
>> . In this example, all type definitions except one were replaced with
>> declarations by thinlto. The definition, which was left, is in a piece
of
>> debug info related to deleted code. According to zero-length rule, that
>> definition could be ignored, and finally, incomplete debug info could
be
>> used.
>>
>> So, it probably should be forbidden to generate debug_info, which could
>> become incomplete after removing pieces related to zero length address
>> ranges. Otherwise, creating zero-length address ranges could lead to
>> incomplete debug info.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you, Alexey.
>>
>>
>>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fangrui Song <maskray at google.com>
> Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 1:07 AM
> To: David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com>
> Cc: Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>; Alexey Lapshin
> <alapshin at accesssoftek.com>; Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at
google.com>; Wei Mi
> <wmi at google.com>; Adrian Prantl <aprantl at apple.com>;
Jonas Devlieghere
> <jdevlieghere at apple.com>; Alexey Lapshin <a.v.lapshin at
mail.ru>; Eric
> Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>; peter.smith at arm.com;
> grimar at accesssoftek.com; llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions, linker gc
> 
> On 2020-05-28, David Blaikie wrote:
> >On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 2:52 PM Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at
sony.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> >> As has been mentioned elsewhere, Sony generally fixes up
references
> from
> >> debug info to stripped functions (of any length) using -1, because
> that’s a
> >> less-likely-to-be-real address than 0x0 or 0x1.  (0x0 is a typical
base
> >> address for shared libraries, I’d think using it has the potential
to
> >> mislead various consumers.)  For .debug_ranges we use -2, because
both
> a
> >> 0/0 pair and a -1/-1 pair have a reserved meaning in that section.
> >>
> >
> >Any harm in using -2 everywhere, for consistency?
> 
> When resolving a relocation, in certain cases we have to give an undefined
> symbol a value.
> This can happen with:
> 
> * an undefined weak symbol
> * an undefined global symbol in --noinhibit-exec mode (a buggy --gc-
> sections implementation can trigger this as well)
> * a relocation referencing an undefined symbol in a non-SHF_ALLOC section
> 
> We always respect the addend in a relocation entry for an absolute/PC-
> relative (I can use "most" here)
> relocation (R_ARM_THM_PC8, R_AARCH64_ADR_PREL_PG_HI21, R_X86_64_64,
> local exec TLS relocation types, ...)
> Ignoring the addend (using -2 everywhere) will break this consistency.
> 
> The relocated code may do pointer subtraction which would work if addends
> were
> respected, but will break using -2 everywhere.
I suspect David meant "any harm to using -2 in all .debug_* sections?"
and not literally everywhere.  Sony does special cases only for the
.debug_* sections.

I've been meaning to propose that DWARF v6 reserve a special address for
this kind of situation.  Whether the committee would be willing to make
it be -1 or -2 for all targets, or make it target-defined, I don't know.
(Dreading the inevitable argument over whether addresses are signed or
unsigned, or more to the point whether they wrap.  They've been unsigned
and wrapping was undefined on the small set of machines I'm familiar with.)
Certainly the toolchain community would benefit from making it be the 
same everywhere.

Personally I'd vote for -1, and make pre-v5 .debug_loc/.debug_ranges
sections be an extra-special case using -2.  We can (I hope) standardize
on -1 for v6 onward, and document -1/-2 on the DWARF wiki as recommended 
practice for prior versions.

> 
> The relocated code can be allocatable or not. Non-allocatable non-debug
> code can have meaningful pointer subtraction as well. This is why I am
> not too fond of (using a fixed value everywhere).
> 
> >(also, I had a silly idea, but what would happen if we added a CU
> attribute
> >with an address value that was a reference to a weak always-unused
> symbol,
> >that way the linker would fix it up with whatever its preferred magic
> value
> >was, and the consumer would then know what the magic value was that
> >represented dead code? (though this would only work if the value were
> used
> >consistently everywhere - which is zero for gold/lld (well, almost...
you
> >can still create situations where a non-zero value is used even for a
> >low_pc), but wouldn't work for binutils ld (1 in debug_ranges, 0
> elsewhere)
> >or Sony (-2 in debug_ranges, -1 elsewhere)... - so, wouldn't
actually
> work
> >for any producer currently, so maybe there's little value in that
as a
> >feature))
> 
> For a non-SHF_ALLOC section, LLD currently considers it a GC root if all
> the conditions below are satisfied:
> 
> * not SHT_REL[A]
> * not SHF_LINK_ORDER
> * not in a section group
> 
> (I managed to lobby the ideas to GNU ld. GNU ld from binutils 2.35
> onwards will have mostly compatible semantics with LLD)
> 
> There is a cost fragmenting a .debug_* section: sizeof(Elf64_Shdr)=64 ->
> each section takes 64 bytes in the section header table. SHF_LINK_ORDER
> has semantics of a lightweight section group. Assume we don't want to
> have one .debug_* for each function section, this .debug_* will be a GC
> root. Relocations from it (even if the symbol is weak) will retain the
> sections defining the symbols.
We did some quick research into per-function .debug_info fragments a
while back, putting the subprogram info into the same section group as
the function; it was not an unqualified win.  The very large number of
sections costs processing time, and cross-section references added to
the relocation count (I believe these can generally be resolved by MC
in a non-fragmented .debug_info section).  James Henderson might have
the actual results stashed somewhere.

That approach *might* still be faster than post-processing a unified 
section, which IIUC is what D59553 does.
> 
> So, this trick can't work without refining the --gc-sections rules
> further.
If I understand the objection, yeah, we can't have .debug_* sections
being gc roots.

--paulr
> 
> >
> >>  If you’re looking only at zero-length functions, you can stop
there;
> but
> >> I’m not sure why stopping there solves much of a real problem, as
> >> zero-length functions seem like a weird corner case.
> >>
> >
> >They're the case that breaks existing usage by terminating the
range list
> >early - the other existing usage seems to be fine with "resolve to
> addend"
> >strategy that lld and gold use - in that it moves most
dead/deduplicated
> >functions outside the executable range and so consumers never come
asking
> >for "what code is at instruction 5" because they're never
executing code
> at
> >a pc of 5. But, yes, this existing solution doesn't work once you
have
> code
> >mapped into low address spaces or have utterly massive functions that
> might
> >have a length that would reach into the executable address space even
> when
> >their start is remapped to zero.
> 
> For posterity, David gave me an example offline: void f1() { } void f2() {
> } int main() { f1(); }
> 
> clang -fuse-ld=bfd -ffunction-sections -Wl,--gc-sections -g a.c -o a.bfd
> llvm-dwarfdump -debug-ranges a.bfd
> =>
> R_X86_64_64 relocations in .debug_ranges are resolved to 1, ignoring the
> addend
> 
> (Behavior introduced in
> https://sourceware.org/git/?p=binutils-
> gdb.git;a=blobdiff;f=bfd*ChangeLog;h=8fbaed21fa2c8238459acb637545583f3cfbb
> fdf;hp=18a3a67be3a5980998c4461b5a739e54f3551b17;hb=e4067dbb2a3368dbf908b39
> c5435c84d51abc9f3;hpb=c0621d88b096cc046adf6ed484baea9ba5bfe721)
> 
> The comments below are also insightful. I need to ponder more (and need
> to read the DWARF v4 and v5 specs more as I am not so familiar these
> DWARF constructs). But it is too late now. Will probably comment
> another day :)
> 
> >
> >> Linkers know how to strip dead functions (gc) or deduplicate them
(icf,
> >> COMDAT) and people do this all the time, in some cases (COMDAT)
without
> >> explicitly asking for it, so non-zero-length functions seem like
the
> much
> >> more interesting case.  In that situation, -1 (or -2) seems like a
much
> >> wiser choice of blessed-as-not-real address, versus 0x0 or 0x1.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Stripping non-zero-length functions does mean you have to care
about
> more
> >> sections.  For example .debug_locs would want to be fixed up the
same
> way
> >> as .debug_ranges, not because a debugger would care but so that
dumpers
> >> would not run into the 0/0 brick wall.
> >>
> >
> >Yep - in theory a consumer could actually use a loclist across multiple
> >sections (if a global variable got hoisted into a register for a
function
> >for instance), but I don't know of any producers doing this today -
until
> >then, yeah, it's just a dumping problem and ld.bfd does produce
DWARF
> that
> >has that problem (because it resolves both relocations to dead code
> >(begin/end of a range) to zero in all sections except debug_ranges, so
> >terminates the loclist list early) - binutils objdump avoids dumping
the
> >following corrupted fragment by only dumping hunks of debug_loc
starting
> at
> >places referenced from debug_info. Without debug_info it won't dump
> >anything from debug_loc - and if the references from debug_info, parsed
> >until the 0,0 terminator don't cover the whole debug_loc section,
it
> prints
> >messages saying there are "gaps".
> >
> >Agreed that you'd want debug_loc to have the same special handling
as
> >debug_ranges if it has special handling. Though ideally we'd pick a
value
> >that works equally everywhere? (-2, by the sounds of it)
> >
> >
> >> We also fix up lengths in .debug_aranges to zero, although there
might
> be
> >> history behind that tactic that I’m not aware of; it seems like it
> ought to
> >> be unnecessary, if consumers are aware of the special address(es).
> >>
> >
> >Yeah, no idea about debug_aranges... I'd have thought it'd be
fine with
> the
> >same approach as debug_ranges, but I haven't looked at
debug_aranges in a
> >long time.
> >
> >I guess the only remaining question is: Since it's possible to have
code
> on
> >some systems down at address zero, or close enough to it that [0,
length)
> >might overlap with real exxecutable code addresses - does anyone know
of
> >the inverse: where code is mapped up near uint32 max? Such that that
> usage
> >wouldn't be able to sacrifice uint32 max - 1 to use as a blessed
value
> here?
> >
> >- Dave
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> --paulr
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> *From:* Alexey Lapshin <alapshin at accesssoftek.com>
> >> *Sent:* Thursday, May 28, 2020 9:03 AM
> >> *To:* Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at google.com>; Wei Mi
<wmi at google.com>;
> >> Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>; Adrian Prantl
> <aprantl at apple.com>;
> >> Jonas Devlieghere <jdevlieghere at apple.com>; Alexey
Lapshin <
> >> a.v.lapshin at mail.ru>; Eric Christopher <echristo at
gmail.com>; Fangrui
> Song
> >> <maskray at google.com>; David Blaikie <dblaikie at
gmail.com>;
> >> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> >> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions,
linker gc
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi David,
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> >So there have been several recent discussions about the issues
around
> >>
> >> >DWARF-agnostic linking and gc-sections, linkonce function
definitions
> >> being
> >>
> >> >dropped, etc - and just how much DWARF-awareness would be
suitable
> >>
> >> >in a linker to help with this situation.
> >>
> >>
> >> > I'd like to discuss a narrower instance of this issue:
Zero length
> >> gc'd/deduplicated functions.
> >>
> >> > LLVM seems to at least produce zero length functions in a few
cases:
> >> > * non-void function without a return statement
> >> > * function definition containing only llvm_unreachable
> >> > (both of these trap at -O0, but at higher optimization levels
even
> the
> >> trap
> >>
> >> > instruction is removed & you get the full power UB of
control
> >> flowing off
> >>
> >> > the end of the function into whatever other bytes are after
that
> >> function)
> >>
> >> > So, for context, debug_ranges (this whole issue doesn't
exist in
> >> DWARFv5,
> >>
> >> > FWIW) is a list of address pairs, terminated by a pair of
zeros.
> >>
> >> > With function sections, or even just with normal C++ inline
> functions,
> >>
> >> > the CU will have a range entry for that function that
consists of two
> >> relocations
> >>
> >> > - to the start and end of the function. Generally the start
of the
> >> function is the
> >>
> >> > start of the section, and the end is "start of function
+ length of
> >> function (aka addend)".
> >>
> >> >  Usually any relocation to the section would keep that
section
> "alive"
> >> during linking -
> >>
> >> > but that would cause debug info to defeat linker GC and
> deduplication.
> >> So there's
> >>
> >> > special rules for how linkers handle these relocations in
debug info
> to
> >> allow the
> >>
> >> > sections to be dropped - what do you write in the bytes that
> requested
> >> the relocation?
> >>
> >> > Binutils ld: Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving all
> relocations
> >> to dead
> >>
> >> > code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are all
resolved to
> >> zero.
> >>
> >> > Gold and lld: Special cases all debug info sections -
resolving all
> >> relocations
> >>
> >> > to "addend" (so begin usually goes to zero, end
goes to "size of
> >> function")
> >>
> >> > These special rules are designed to ensure
omitted/gc'd/deduplicated
> >> functions
> >>
> >> > don't cause the range list to terminate prematurely
(which would
> happen
> >> if begin/end
> >>
> >> > were both resolved to zero).
> >>
> >> >But with an empty function, gold and lld's strategy here
fails to
> avoid
> >> terminating a
> >>
> >> >range list by accident.
> >>
> >> > What should we do about it?
> >>
> >> >  1) Ensure no zero-length functions exist? (doesn't
address backwards
> >>
> >> > compatibility/existing functions/other compilers)
> >> > 2) adopt the binutils approach to this (at least in
debug_ranges -
> maybe
> >> in all
> >>
> >> > debug sections? (doing it in other sections could break )
> >> >  3) Revisit the discussion about using an even more
'blessed' value,
> >>
> >> > like int max-1? (
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiewZqMLtoA$
> >>
>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$
> >
> >>  )
> >>
> >> >  (I don't have links to all the recent threads about this
discussion
> - I
> >> think D59553
> >>
> >> > might've spawned a separate broader discussion/non-review
- oh,
> Alexey
> >> wrote a
> >>
> >> > good summary with links to other discussions here:
> >>
> >> > 
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> dev/2019-September/135068.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-
> QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiey_aMV0lQ$
> >>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> dev/2019-
> September/135068.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE
> 70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY638NIRu2g$>
> >>  )
> >>
> >> > Thoughts?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I think for the problem of "zero length functions and
.debug_ranges"
> >> binutils approach looks good:
> >>
> >> >Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving all relocations to
> >> >dead code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are all
resolved
> to
> >> >zero.
> >>
> >> But, this would not completely solve the problem from
> >>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiewZqMLtoA$
> >>
>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$
> >
> >> - Overlapped address ranges. Binutils approach will solve the
problem
> if
> >> the address range specified as start_address:end_address. While
> resolving
> >> relocations, it would replace such a range with 1:1.
> >> However, It would not work if address ranges were specified as
> >> start_address:length since the length is not relocated. This case
could
> be
> >> additionally fixed by fast scan debug_info for High_PC defined as
> length
> >> and changing it to 1. Something which you suggested here:
> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> dev/2020-May/141599.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-
> QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiexb8NU_Fw$
> >>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> dev/2020-
> May/141599.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b
> 4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63PsubKJQ$>
> >> .
> >>
> >> So it looks like following solution could fix both problems and be
> >> relatively fast:
> >>
> >> "Resolve all relocations from debug sections into dead code
to 1. Parse
> >> debug sections and replace HighPc of an address range pointing to
dead
> code
> >> and specified as length to 1".
> >>
> >> As the result all address ranges pointing into dead code would be
> marked
> >> as zero length.
> >>
> >> There still exist another problem:
> >>
> >> DWARF4: "A range list entry (but not a base address selection
or end of
> >> list entry) whose beginning and
> >> ending addresses are equal has no effect because the size of the
range
> >> covered by such an
> >> entry is zero."
> >>
> >> DWARF5: "A bounded range entry whose beginning and ending
address
> offsets
> >> are equal
> >> (including zero) indicates an empty range and may be
ignored."
> >>
> >> These rules allow us to ignore zero-length address ranges. I.e.,
some
> tool
> >> reading DWARF is permitted to ignore related DWARF entries. In
that
> case,
> >> there could be ignored essential descriptions. That problem could
> happen
> >> with -flto=thin example
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D54747*1503720__;Iw!!
> JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-
> 1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiezSujGHwQ$
> >>
>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D54747*1503720__;Iw!!
> JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY
> 637ju_eQw$>
> >> . In this example, all type definitions except one were replaced
with
> >> declarations by thinlto. The definition, which was left, is in a
piece
> of
> >> debug info related to deleted code. According to zero-length rule,
that
> >> definition could be ignored, and finally, incomplete debug info
could
> be
> >> used.
> >>
> >> So, it probably should be forbidden to generate debug_info, which
could
> >> become incomplete after removing pieces related to zero length
address
> >> ranges. Otherwise, creating zero-length address ranges could lead
to
> >> incomplete debug info.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Thank you, Alexey.
> >>
> >>
> >>

> Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions, linker gc
>
> On 2020-05-28, David Blaikie wrote:
> >On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 2:52 PM Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at
sony.com>
> >wrote:
> >
> >> As has been mentioned elsewhere, Sony generally fixes up
references
> from
> >> debug info to stripped functions (of any length) using -1, because
> that’s a
> >> less-likely-to-be-real address than 0x0 or 0x1.  (0x0 is a typical
base
> >> address for shared libraries, I’d think using it has the potential
to
> >> mislead various consumers.)  For .debug_ranges we use -2, because
both
> a
> >> 0/0 pair and a -1/-1 pair have a reserved meaning in that section.
> >>
> >
> >Any harm in using -2 everywhere, for consistency?
>
> When resolving a relocation, in certain cases we have to give an undefined
> symbol a value.
> This can happen with:
>
> * an undefined weak symbol
> * an undefined global symbol in --noinhibit-exec mode (a buggy --gc-
> sections implementation can trigger this as well)
> * a relocation referencing an undefined symbol in a non-SHF_ALLOC section
>
> We always respect the addend in a relocation entry for an absolute/PC-
> relative (I can use "most" here)
> relocation (R_ARM_THM_PC8, R_AARCH64_ADR_PREL_PG_HI21, R_X86_64_64,
> local exec TLS relocation types, ...)
> Ignoring the addend (using -2 everywhere) will break this consistency.
>
> The relocated code may do pointer subtraction which would work if addends
> were
> respected, but will break using -2 everywhere.
>I suspect David meant "any harm to using -2 in all .debug_*
sections?"
>and not literally everywhere.  Sony does special cases only for the
>.debug_* sections.
>I've been meaning to propose that DWARF v6 reserve a special address for
>this kind of situation.  Whether the committee would be willing to make
>it be -1 or -2 for all targets, or make it target-defined, I don't know.
>(Dreading the inevitable argument over whether addresses are signed or
>unsigned, or more to the point whether they wrap.  They've been unsigned
>and wrapping was undefined on the small set of machines I'm familiar
with.)
>Certainly the toolchain community would benefit from making it be the
>same everywhere.
>Personally I'd vote for -1, and make pre-v5 .debug_loc/.debug_ranges
>sections be an extra-special case using -2.  We can (I hope) standardize
>on -1 for v6 onward, and document -1/-2 on the DWARF wiki as recommended
>practice for prior versions.
Would it make sense to use "LowPC > HighPC" in DWARF documentation
as a sign for that
case, instead of -1 or -2 ?

Or more correct: To indicate that address range points into deleted code there
should be used either zero length, either LowPC>HighPc range ?

zero length address range is already defined in DWARF documentation.
LowPC>HighPc is currently not described. It could be documented and 
used as general representation instead of concrete special value. 

Implementation could still use -2 for resolving relocations and it would satisfy
above definition.

Thank you, Alexey.

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 9:21 AM Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>
wrote:
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Fangrui Song <maskray at google.com>
> > Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 1:07 AM
> > To: David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com>
> > Cc: Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>; Alexey Lapshin
> > <alapshin at accesssoftek.com>; Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at
google.com>; Wei Mi
> > <wmi at google.com>; Adrian Prantl <aprantl at apple.com>;
Jonas Devlieghere
> > <jdevlieghere at apple.com>; Alexey Lapshin <a.v.lapshin at
mail.ru>; Eric
> > Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>; peter.smith at arm.com;
> > grimar at accesssoftek.com; llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> > Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions, linker gc
> >
> > On 2020-05-28, David Blaikie wrote:
> > >On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 2:52 PM Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson
at sony.com>
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >> As has been mentioned elsewhere, Sony generally fixes up
references
> > from
> > >> debug info to stripped functions (of any length) using -1,
because
> > that’s a
> > >> less-likely-to-be-real address than 0x0 or 0x1.  (0x0 is a
typical base
> > >> address for shared libraries, I’d think using it has the
potential to
> > >> mislead various consumers.)  For .debug_ranges we use -2,
because both
> > a
> > >> 0/0 pair and a -1/-1 pair have a reserved meaning in that
section.
> > >>
> > >
> > >Any harm in using -2 everywhere, for consistency?
> >
> > When resolving a relocation, in certain cases we have to give an
undefined
> > symbol a value.
> > This can happen with:
> >
> > * an undefined weak symbol
> > * an undefined global symbol in --noinhibit-exec mode (a buggy --gc-
> > sections implementation can trigger this as well)
> > * a relocation referencing an undefined symbol in a non-SHF_ALLOC
section
> >
> > We always respect the addend in a relocation entry for an absolute/PC-
> > relative (I can use "most" here)
> > relocation (R_ARM_THM_PC8, R_AARCH64_ADR_PREL_PG_HI21, R_X86_64_64,
> > local exec TLS relocation types, ...)
> > Ignoring the addend (using -2 everywhere) will break this consistency.
> >
> > The relocated code may do pointer subtraction which would work if
addends
> > were
> > respected, but will break using -2 everywhere.
>
> I suspect David meant "any harm to using -2 in all .debug_*
sections?"
> and not literally everywhere.  Sony does special cases only for the
> .debug_* sections.
Right - thanks for the clarification.
> I've been meaning to propose that DWARF v6 reserve a special address
for
> this kind of situation.  Whether the committee would be willing to make
> it be -1 or -2 for all targets, or make it target-defined, I don't
know.
> (Dreading the inevitable argument over whether addresses are signed or
> unsigned, or more to the point whether they wrap.  They've been
unsigned
> and wrapping was undefined on the small set of machines I'm familiar
with.)
> Certainly the toolchain community would benefit from making it be the
> same everywhere.
>
> Personally I'd vote for -1, and make pre-v5 .debug_loc/.debug_ranges
> sections be an extra-special case using -2.  We can (I hope) standardize
> on -1 for v6 onward, and document -1/-2 on the DWARF wiki as recommended
> practice for prior versions.
That'd make linking difficult - the unix linkers at least, currently
don't have to identify the DWARF version when linking - having to pass
an extra linking flag or have the linker parse any DWARF (what if an
object file contains more than one CU & the linker has to apply
different relocations in different parts of the object file because of
that?) would be a significant cost/problem, I think.

Though I like the tidiness of -1 everywhere, that backwards
compatibility with debug_ranges (& debug_loc similarly) is a problem.
Though ld.bfd does special case debug_ranges (& should special case
debug_loc), perhaps that's the solution. -2 for debug_ranges and
debug_loc, -1 everywhere else (which effectively means everywhere in
DWARFv5 onwards)?
>
>
> >
> > The relocated code can be allocatable or not. Non-allocatable
non-debug
> > code can have meaningful pointer subtraction as well. This is why I am
> > not too fond of (using a fixed value everywhere).
> >
> > >(also, I had a silly idea, but what would happen if we added a CU
> > attribute
> > >with an address value that was a reference to a weak always-unused
> > symbol,
> > >that way the linker would fix it up with whatever its preferred
magic
> > value
> > >was, and the consumer would then know what the magic value was
that
> > >represented dead code? (though this would only work if the value
were
> > used
> > >consistently everywhere - which is zero for gold/lld (well,
almost... you
> > >can still create situations where a non-zero value is used even
for a
> > >low_pc), but wouldn't work for binutils ld (1 in debug_ranges,
0
> > elsewhere)
> > >or Sony (-2 in debug_ranges, -1 elsewhere)... - so, wouldn't
actually
> > work
> > >for any producer currently, so maybe there's little value in
that as a
> > >feature))
> >
> > For a non-SHF_ALLOC section, LLD currently considers it a GC root if
all
> > the conditions below are satisfied:
> >
> > * not SHT_REL[A]
> > * not SHF_LINK_ORDER
> > * not in a section group
> >
> > (I managed to lobby the ideas to GNU ld. GNU ld from binutils 2.35
> > onwards will have mostly compatible semantics with LLD)
> >
> > There is a cost fragmenting a .debug_* section: sizeof(Elf64_Shdr)=64
->
> > each section takes 64 bytes in the section header table.
Soryr, I missed a step here - you're talking about the cost to
fragmenting .debug_* sections as an alternative to choosing a special
address value to resolve for dead code? (by removing the DWARF that
refers to the dead code, uinstead of keeping it and having to write a
special address value into it?)

Unfortunately, no matter the cost - that solution doesn't apply to
Split DWARF. Maybe at some point we'll want to have some output from
the linker that lists the dead/live code, and use that for building a
dwp (like dsymutil) but I don't think we can predicate correctness on
such a thing - in part because we'd still want to be able to read the
.dwo files without post-processing for more interactive/iterative
development scenarios. So we'd still need a special address value to
write into debug_addr when using Split DWARF, and I think it's
important to allow the non-split case to look like the split case
where it doesn't /have/ to diverge - if divergence provides benefits,
that's nice, but I don't think it'd be good to make that divergence
/necessary/.
> > SHF_LINK_ORDER
> > has semantics of a lightweight section group. Assume we don't want
to
> > have one .debug_* for each function section, this .debug_* will be a
GC
> > root. Relocations from it (even if the symbol is weak) will retain the
> > sections defining the symbols.
>
> We did some quick research into per-function .debug_info fragments a
> while back, putting the subprogram info into the same section group as
> the function; it was not an unqualified win.  The very large number of
> sections costs processing time, and cross-section references added to
> the relocation count (I believe these can generally be resolved by MC
> in a non-fragmented .debug_info section).
Yeah, you either pay more relocations (or size cost to use signatures
instead) and/or more size to duplicate some DIEs (like type units
currently duplicate fundamental/non-user-defined types into the type
unit).

(& it's a non-starter for Split DWARF anyway)
>  James Henderson might have
> the actual results stashed somewhere.
>
> That approach *might* still be faster than post-processing a unified
> section, which IIUC is what D59553 does.
>
> >
> > So, this trick can't work without refining the --gc-sections rules
> > further.
>
> If I understand the objection, yeah, we can't have .debug_* sections
> being gc roots.
I'm not sure I follow, here - "this trick" being "splitting
debug info
into droppable chunks for each function/subprogram and putting those
chunks in the same comdat group as the function code itself" - that
trick wouldn't work because the current rules would move that debug
info from (where it currently is in one big debug_info section) a
non-gc root to (where it would go - becoming part of a comdat group) a
gc-root? OK, right. Agreed that's another reason (apart from the Split
DWARF one, and the size/reloc tradeoff ones) that would be
problematic.

- Dave
>
> --paulr
>
> >
> > >
> > >>  If you’re looking only at zero-length functions, you can
stop there;
> > but
> > >> I’m not sure why stopping there solves much of a real
problem, as
> > >> zero-length functions seem like a weird corner case.
> > >>
> > >
> > >They're the case that breaks existing usage by terminating the
range list
> > >early - the other existing usage seems to be fine with
"resolve to
> > addend"
> > >strategy that lld and gold use - in that it moves most
dead/deduplicated
> > >functions outside the executable range and so consumers never come
asking
> > >for "what code is at instruction 5" because they're
never executing code
> > at
> > >a pc of 5. But, yes, this existing solution doesn't work once
you have
> > code
> > >mapped into low address spaces or have utterly massive functions
that
> > might
> > >have a length that would reach into the executable address space
even
> > when
> > >their start is remapped to zero.
> >
> > For posterity, David gave me an example offline: void f1() { } void
f2() {
> > } int main() { f1(); }
> >
> > clang -fuse-ld=bfd -ffunction-sections -Wl,--gc-sections -g a.c -o
a.bfd
> > llvm-dwarfdump -debug-ranges a.bfd
> > =>
> > R_X86_64_64 relocations in .debug_ranges are resolved to 1, ignoring
the
> > addend
> >
> > (Behavior introduced in
> > https://sourceware.org/git/?p=binutils-
> >
gdb.git;a=blobdiff;f=bfd*ChangeLog;h=8fbaed21fa2c8238459acb637545583f3cfbb
> >
fdf;hp=18a3a67be3a5980998c4461b5a739e54f3551b17;hb=e4067dbb2a3368dbf908b39
> > c5435c84d51abc9f3;hpb=c0621d88b096cc046adf6ed484baea9ba5bfe721)
> >
> > The comments below are also insightful. I need to ponder more (and
need
> > to read the DWARF v4 and v5 specs more as I am not so familiar these
> > DWARF constructs). But it is too late now. Will probably comment
> > another day :)
> >
> > >
> > >> Linkers know how to strip dead functions (gc) or deduplicate
them (icf,
> > >> COMDAT) and people do this all the time, in some cases
(COMDAT) without
> > >> explicitly asking for it, so non-zero-length functions seem
like the
> > much
> > >> more interesting case.  In that situation, -1 (or -2) seems
like a much
> > >> wiser choice of blessed-as-not-real address, versus 0x0 or
0x1.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Stripping non-zero-length functions does mean you have to
care about
> > more
> > >> sections.  For example .debug_locs would want to be fixed up
the same
> > way
> > >> as .debug_ranges, not because a debugger would care but so
that dumpers
> > >> would not run into the 0/0 brick wall.
> > >>
> > >
> > >Yep - in theory a consumer could actually use a loclist across
multiple
> > >sections (if a global variable got hoisted into a register for a
function
> > >for instance), but I don't know of any producers doing this
today - until
> > >then, yeah, it's just a dumping problem and ld.bfd does
produce DWARF
> > that
> > >has that problem (because it resolves both relocations to dead
code
> > >(begin/end of a range) to zero in all sections except
debug_ranges, so
> > >terminates the loclist list early) - binutils objdump avoids
dumping the
> > >following corrupted fragment by only dumping hunks of debug_loc
starting
> > at
> > >places referenced from debug_info. Without debug_info it won't
dump
> > >anything from debug_loc - and if the references from debug_info,
parsed
> > >until the 0,0 terminator don't cover the whole debug_loc
section, it
> > prints
> > >messages saying there are "gaps".
> > >
> > >Agreed that you'd want debug_loc to have the same special
handling as
> > >debug_ranges if it has special handling. Though ideally we'd
pick a value
> > >that works equally everywhere? (-2, by the sounds of it)
> > >
> > >
> > >> We also fix up lengths in .debug_aranges to zero, although
there might
> > be
> > >> history behind that tactic that I’m not aware of; it seems
like it
> > ought to
> > >> be unnecessary, if consumers are aware of the special
address(es).
> > >>
> > >
> > >Yeah, no idea about debug_aranges... I'd have thought it'd
be fine with
> > the
> > >same approach as debug_ranges, but I haven't looked at
debug_aranges in a
> > >long time.
> > >
> > >I guess the only remaining question is: Since it's possible to
have code
> > on
> > >some systems down at address zero, or close enough to it that [0,
length)
> > >might overlap with real exxecutable code addresses - does anyone
know of
> > >the inverse: where code is mapped up near uint32 max? Such that
that
> > usage
> > >wouldn't be able to sacrifice uint32 max - 1 to use as a
blessed value
> > here?
> > >
> > >- Dave
> > >
> > >
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --paulr
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> *From:* Alexey Lapshin <alapshin at accesssoftek.com>
> > >> *Sent:* Thursday, May 28, 2020 9:03 AM
> > >> *To:* Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at google.com>; Wei Mi
<wmi at google.com>;
> > >> Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>; Adrian
Prantl
> > <aprantl at apple.com>;
> > >> Jonas Devlieghere <jdevlieghere at apple.com>; Alexey
Lapshin <
> > >> a.v.lapshin at mail.ru>; Eric Christopher <echristo at
gmail.com>; Fangrui
> > Song
> > >> <maskray at google.com>; David Blaikie <dblaikie at
gmail.com>;
> > >> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> > >> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions,
linker gc
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Hi David,
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> >So there have been several recent discussions about the
issues around
> > >>
> > >> >DWARF-agnostic linking and gc-sections, linkonce function
definitions
> > >> being
> > >>
> > >> >dropped, etc - and just how much DWARF-awareness would be
suitable
> > >>
> > >> >in a linker to help with this situation.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> > I'd like to discuss a narrower instance of this
issue: Zero length
> > >> gc'd/deduplicated functions.
> > >>
> > >> > LLVM seems to at least produce zero length functions in
a few cases:
> > >> > * non-void function without a return statement
> > >> > * function definition containing only llvm_unreachable
> > >> > (both of these trap at -O0, but at higher optimization
levels even
> > the
> > >> trap
> > >>
> > >> > instruction is removed & you get the full power UB
of control
> > >> flowing off
> > >>
> > >> > the end of the function into whatever other bytes are
after that
> > >> function)
> > >>
> > >> > So, for context, debug_ranges (this whole issue
doesn't exist in
> > >> DWARFv5,
> > >>
> > >> > FWIW) is a list of address pairs, terminated by a pair
of zeros.
> > >>
> > >> > With function sections, or even just with normal C++
inline
> > functions,
> > >>
> > >> > the CU will have a range entry for that function that
consists of two
> > >> relocations
> > >>
> > >> > - to the start and end of the function. Generally the
start of the
> > >> function is the
> > >>
> > >> > start of the section, and the end is "start of
function + length of
> > >> function (aka addend)".
> > >>
> > >> >  Usually any relocation to the section would keep that
section
> > "alive"
> > >> during linking -
> > >>
> > >> > but that would cause debug info to defeat linker GC and
> > deduplication.
> > >> So there's
> > >>
> > >> > special rules for how linkers handle these relocations
in debug info
> > to
> > >> allow the
> > >>
> > >> > sections to be dropped - what do you write in the bytes
that
> > requested
> > >> the relocation?
> > >>
> > >> > Binutils ld: Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving
all
> > relocations
> > >> to dead
> > >>
> > >> > code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are all
resolved to
> > >> zero.
> > >>
> > >> > Gold and lld: Special cases all debug info sections -
resolving all
> > >> relocations
> > >>
> > >> > to "addend" (so begin usually goes to zero,
end goes to "size of
> > >> function")
> > >>
> > >> > These special rules are designed to ensure
omitted/gc'd/deduplicated
> > >> functions
> > >>
> > >> > don't cause the range list to terminate prematurely
(which would
> > happen
> > >> if begin/end
> > >>
> > >> > were both resolved to zero).
> > >>
> > >> >But with an empty function, gold and lld's strategy
here fails to
> > avoid
> > >> terminating a
> > >>
> > >> >range list by accident.
> > >>
> > >> > What should we do about it?
> > >>
> > >> >  1) Ensure no zero-length functions exist? (doesn't
address backwards
> > >>
> > >> > compatibility/existing functions/other compilers)
> > >> > 2) adopt the binutils approach to this (at least in
debug_ranges -
> > maybe
> > >> in all
> > >>
> > >> > debug sections? (doing it in other sections could break
)
> > >> >  3) Revisit the discussion about using an even more
'blessed' value,
> > >>
> > >> > like int max-1? (
> >
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiewZqMLtoA$
> > >>
> >
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$
> > >
> > >>  )
> > >>
> > >> >  (I don't have links to all the recent threads about
this discussion
> > - I
> > >> think D59553
> > >>
> > >> > might've spawned a separate broader
discussion/non-review - oh,
> > Alexey
> > >> wrote a
> > >>
> > >> > good summary with links to other discussions here:
> > >>
> > >> > 
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> >
dev/2019-September/135068.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-
> > QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiey_aMV0lQ$
> > >>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> > dev/2019-
> >
September/135068.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE
> > 70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY638NIRu2g$>
> > >>  )
> > >>
> > >> > Thoughts?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> I think for the problem of "zero length functions and
.debug_ranges"
> > >> binutils approach looks good:
> > >>
> > >> >Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving all
relocations to
> > >> >dead code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are
all resolved
> > to
> > >> >zero.
> > >>
> > >> But, this would not completely solve the problem from
> > >>
> >
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiewZqMLtoA$
> > >>
> >
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$
> > >
> > >> - Overlapped address ranges. Binutils approach will solve the
problem
> > if
> > >> the address range specified as start_address:end_address.
While
> > resolving
> > >> relocations, it would replace such a range with 1:1.
> > >> However, It would not work if address ranges were specified
as
> > >> start_address:length since the length is not relocated. This
case could
> > be
> > >> additionally fixed by fast scan debug_info for High_PC
defined as
> > length
> > >> and changing it to 1. Something which you suggested here:
> > >>
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> > dev/2020-May/141599.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-
> > QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiexb8NU_Fw$
> > >>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> > dev/2020-
> >
May/141599.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b
> > 4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63PsubKJQ$>
> > >> .
> > >>
> > >> So it looks like following solution could fix both problems
and be
> > >> relatively fast:
> > >>
> > >> "Resolve all relocations from debug sections into dead
code to 1. Parse
> > >> debug sections and replace HighPc of an address range
pointing to dead
> > code
> > >> and specified as length to 1".
> > >>
> > >> As the result all address ranges pointing into dead code
would be
> > marked
> > >> as zero length.
> > >>
> > >> There still exist another problem:
> > >>
> > >> DWARF4: "A range list entry (but not a base address
selection or end of
> > >> list entry) whose beginning and
> > >> ending addresses are equal has no effect because the size of
the range
> > >> covered by such an
> > >> entry is zero."
> > >>
> > >> DWARF5: "A bounded range entry whose beginning and
ending address
> > offsets
> > >> are equal
> > >> (including zero) indicates an empty range and may be
ignored."
> > >>
> > >> These rules allow us to ignore zero-length address ranges.
I.e., some
> > tool
> > >> reading DWARF is permitted to ignore related DWARF entries.
In that
> > case,
> > >> there could be ignored essential descriptions. That problem
could
> > happen
> > >> with -flto=thin example
> >
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D54747*1503720__;Iw!!
> > JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-
> > 1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiezSujGHwQ$
> > >>
> >
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D54747*1503720__;Iw!!
> >
JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY
> > 637ju_eQw$>
> > >> . In this example, all type definitions except one were
replaced with
> > >> declarations by thinlto. The definition, which was left, is
in a piece
> > of
> > >> debug info related to deleted code. According to zero-length
rule, that
> > >> definition could be ignored, and finally, incomplete debug
info could
> > be
> > >> used.
> > >>
> > >> So, it probably should be forbidden to generate debug_info,
which could
> > >> become incomplete after removing pieces related to zero
length address
> > >> ranges. Otherwise, creating zero-length address ranges could
lead to
> > >> incomplete debug info.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Thank you, Alexey.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>

On Fri, 29 May 2020 at 17:22, Robinson, Paul via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Fangrui Song <maskray at google.com>
> > Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 1:07 AM
> > To: David Blaikie <dblaikie at gmail.com>
> > Cc: Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>; Alexey Lapshin
> > <alapshin at accesssoftek.com>; Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at
google.com>; Wei
> Mi
> > <wmi at google.com>; Adrian Prantl <aprantl at apple.com>;
Jonas Devlieghere
> > <jdevlieghere at apple.com>; Alexey Lapshin <a.v.lapshin at
mail.ru>; Eric
> > Christopher <echristo at gmail.com>; peter.smith at arm.com;
> > grimar at accesssoftek.com; llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> > Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions, linker gc
> >
> > On 2020-05-28, David Blaikie wrote:
> > >On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 2:52 PM Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson
at sony.com>
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >> As has been mentioned elsewhere, Sony generally fixes up
references
> > from
> > >> debug info to stripped functions (of any length) using -1,
because
> > that’s a
> > >> less-likely-to-be-real address than 0x0 or 0x1.  (0x0 is a
typical
> base
> > >> address for shared libraries, I’d think using it has the
potential to
> > >> mislead various consumers.)  For .debug_ranges we use -2,
because both
> > a
> > >> 0/0 pair and a -1/-1 pair have a reserved meaning in that
section.
> > >>
> > >
> > >Any harm in using -2 everywhere, for consistency?
> >
> > When resolving a relocation, in certain cases we have to give an
> undefined
> > symbol a value.
> > This can happen with:
> >
> > * an undefined weak symbol
> > * an undefined global symbol in --noinhibit-exec mode (a buggy --gc-
> > sections implementation can trigger this as well)
> > * a relocation referencing an undefined symbol in a non-SHF_ALLOC
section
> >
> > We always respect the addend in a relocation entry for an absolute/PC-
> > relative (I can use "most" here)
> > relocation (R_ARM_THM_PC8, R_AARCH64_ADR_PREL_PG_HI21, R_X86_64_64,
> > local exec TLS relocation types, ...)
> > Ignoring the addend (using -2 everywhere) will break this consistency.
> >
> > The relocated code may do pointer subtraction which would work if
addends
> > were
> > respected, but will break using -2 everywhere.
>
> I suspect David meant "any harm to using -2 in all .debug_*
sections?"
> and not literally everywhere.  Sony does special cases only for the
> .debug_* sections.
>
> I've been meaning to propose that DWARF v6 reserve a special address
for
> this kind of situation.  Whether the committee would be willing to make
> it be -1 or -2 for all targets, or make it target-defined, I don't
know.
> (Dreading the inevitable argument over whether addresses are signed or
> unsigned, or more to the point whether they wrap.  They've been
unsigned
> and wrapping was undefined on the small set of machines I'm familiar
with.)
> Certainly the toolchain community would benefit from making it be the
> same everywhere.
>
> Personally I'd vote for -1, and make pre-v5 .debug_loc/.debug_ranges
> sections be an extra-special case using -2.  We can (I hope) standardize
> on -1 for v6 onward, and document -1/-2 on the DWARF wiki as recommended
> practice for prior versions.
>
>
> >
> > The relocated code can be allocatable or not. Non-allocatable
non-debug
> > code can have meaningful pointer subtraction as well. This is why I am
> > not too fond of (using a fixed value everywhere).
> >
> > >(also, I had a silly idea, but what would happen if we added a CU
> > attribute
> > >with an address value that was a reference to a weak always-unused
> > symbol,
> > >that way the linker would fix it up with whatever its preferred
magic
> > value
> > >was, and the consumer would then know what the magic value was
that
> > >represented dead code? (though this would only work if the value
were
> > used
> > >consistently everywhere - which is zero for gold/lld (well,
almost...
> you
> > >can still create situations where a non-zero value is used even
for a
> > >low_pc), but wouldn't work for binutils ld (1 in debug_ranges,
0
> > elsewhere)
> > >or Sony (-2 in debug_ranges, -1 elsewhere)... - so, wouldn't
actually
> > work
> > >for any producer currently, so maybe there's little value in
that as a
> > >feature))
> >
> > For a non-SHF_ALLOC section, LLD currently considers it a GC root if
all
> > the conditions below are satisfied:
> >
> > * not SHT_REL[A]
> > * not SHF_LINK_ORDER
> > * not in a section group
> >
> > (I managed to lobby the ideas to GNU ld. GNU ld from binutils 2.35
> > onwards will have mostly compatible semantics with LLD)
> >
> > There is a cost fragmenting a .debug_* section: sizeof(Elf64_Shdr)=64
->
> > each section takes 64 bytes in the section header table.
SHF_LINK_ORDER
> > has semantics of a lightweight section group. Assume we don't want
to
> > have one .debug_* for each function section, this .debug_* will be a
GC
> > root. Relocations from it (even if the symbol is weak) will retain the
> > sections defining the symbols.
>
> We did some quick research into per-function .debug_info fragments a
> while back, putting the subprogram info into the same section group as
> the function; it was not an unqualified win.  The very large number of
> sections costs processing time, and cross-section references added to
> the relocation count (I believe these can generally be resolved by MC
> in a non-fragmented .debug_info section).  James Henderson might have
> the actual results stashed somewhere.
>
Amazingly, I managed to find them. Loosely explained, the experiment
fragmented up the sections into smaller pieces that the linker glued back
together using standard linker section grouping semantics. IIRC (I've not
looked at the prototype in a long while), they used the SHF_LINK_ORDER
section flag to achieve natural GC-ing, and consequently were just thrown
away when the associated executable section was discarded.

I measured both the size gains and link times for one of our games, both
with and without --gc-sections, and got mixed results - good debug data
size reductions when GC-ing was enabled, but bad link times degradations
both with and without GC, due to the extra section overhead (and possibly
relocation overhead - I never dug in to identify what exactly caused the
slowdown). The prototype compiler was a modified version of our
then-current clang compiler, and function and data sections were enabled to
get effective GCing.

I don't know which linker I used for this unfortunately - it might well
have been our proprietary one rather than LLD - but I suspect the impact
will be similar regardless, and even if it had been LLD, it would be quite
an old version by now, so we'd want to rerun these results if there was
interest in reinvestigating this approach.

Results are below - they're somewhat rough-and-ready, as I haven't spent
a
lot of time editing them since I drew them up whenever it was:

Baseline:

File size-nogc = 221952512 (211.67MB)
File size-gc = 218083024 (207.98MB) (GC size change: -1.7%)

gc:
Name & Size
.debug_info 0x07E21FAA
.debug_line 0x01389E3D
.debug_abbrev 0x00369F62
.debug_aranges 0x00594E90
.debug_frame 0x00000118
.debug_loc 0x00523365
.debug_macinfo 0x00000664
.debug_pubtypes 0x00000000
.debug_ranges 0x005A8300
.debug_str 0x0039E38A
Total debug_* 177294660 (169.08MB) (81.3% of total file size)
Link time : 5.8s

no gc:
.debug_info 0x07E21FAA
.debug_line 0x01389E3D
.debug_abbrev 0x00369F62
.debug_aranges 0x00594E90
.debug_frame 0x00000118
.debug_loc 0x00523365
.debug_macinfo 0x00000664
.debug_pubtypes 0x00000000
.debug_ranges 0x005A8300
.debug_str 0x0039E38A
Total debug_* 177294660 (169.08MB) (79.9% of total file size)
Link time: 5.8s

Prototype:

File size-nogc = 279623672 (266.67MB) (126.0% vs. baseline)
File size-gc = 194166760 (185.17MB)  (GC size change: -30.6%) (89.0% of
baseline)

gc:
.debug_info 0x071F0EFA
.debug_line 0x00F7B5C4
.debug_abbrev 0x003EED11
.debug_aranges 0x00379410
.debug_frame 0x00000118
.debug_loc 0x00523365
.debug_macinfo 0x00000664
.debug_pubtypes 0x00000000
.debug_ranges 0x0006BA00
.debug_str 0x0039E38A
Total debug_*: 153099850 (146.01MB) (78.8% of total file size) (86.4% of
baseline)
Link time: 11.7s (201.7% of baseline)

no gc:
.debug_info 0x08AFE274
.debug_line 0x037F9220
.debug_abbrev 0x003EED11
.debug_aranges 0x01001130
.debug_frame 0x00000118
.debug_loc 0x00523365
.debug_macinfo 0x00000664
.debug_pubtypes 0x00000000
.debug_ranges 0x0006BA00
.debug_str 0x0039E38A
Total debug_*: 234965824 (224.08MB) (84.0% of total file size) (132% of
baseline)
Link time: 29.2s (503.4% of baseline)

Another issue with this prototype was that the pre-link object files were
not DWARF compliant, since the contribution headers were kept in separate
sections to the body parts, so that they could be kept without throwing
away the body. Perhaps these issues could be resolved with a bit more
support from the standard though, allowing for leaner (preferably
non-existent) headers or something, as current "COMDAT DWARF" tends to
be
very bloated (there needs to be one header per function, which is
impractical, especially with line tables).

> That approach *might* still be faster than post-processing a unified
> section, which IIUC is what D59553 does.
>
> >
> > So, this trick can't work without refining the --gc-sections rules
> > further.
>
> If I understand the objection, yeah, we can't have .debug_* sections
> being gc roots.
>
> --paulr
>
> >
> > >
> > >>  If you’re looking only at zero-length functions, you can
stop there;
> > but
> > >> I’m not sure why stopping there solves much of a real
problem, as
> > >> zero-length functions seem like a weird corner case.
> > >>
> > >
> > >They're the case that breaks existing usage by terminating the
range
> list
> > >early - the other existing usage seems to be fine with
"resolve to
> > addend"
> > >strategy that lld and gold use - in that it moves most
dead/deduplicated
> > >functions outside the executable range and so consumers never come
> asking
> > >for "what code is at instruction 5" because they're
never executing code
> > at
> > >a pc of 5. But, yes, this existing solution doesn't work once
you have
> > code
> > >mapped into low address spaces or have utterly massive functions
that
> > might
> > >have a length that would reach into the executable address space
even
> > when
> > >their start is remapped to zero.
> >
> > For posterity, David gave me an example offline: void f1() { } void
f2()
> {
> > } int main() { f1(); }
> >
> > clang -fuse-ld=bfd -ffunction-sections -Wl,--gc-sections -g a.c -o
a.bfd
> > llvm-dwarfdump -debug-ranges a.bfd
> > =>
> > R_X86_64_64 relocations in .debug_ranges are resolved to 1, ignoring
the
> > addend
> >
> > (Behavior introduced in
> > https://sourceware.org/git/?p=binutils-
> >
> gdb.git;a=blobdiff;f=bfd*ChangeLog;h=8fbaed21fa2c8238459acb637545583f3cfbb
> >
> fdf;hp=18a3a67be3a5980998c4461b5a739e54f3551b17;hb=e4067dbb2a3368dbf908b39
> > c5435c84d51abc9f3;hpb=c0621d88b096cc046adf6ed484baea9ba5bfe721)
> >
> > The comments below are also insightful. I need to ponder more (and
need
> > to read the DWARF v4 and v5 specs more as I am not so familiar these
> > DWARF constructs). But it is too late now. Will probably comment
> > another day :)
> >
> > >
> > >> Linkers know how to strip dead functions (gc) or deduplicate
them
> (icf,
> > >> COMDAT) and people do this all the time, in some cases
(COMDAT)
> without
> > >> explicitly asking for it, so non-zero-length functions seem
like the
> > much
> > >> more interesting case.  In that situation, -1 (or -2) seems
like a
> much
> > >> wiser choice of blessed-as-not-real address, versus 0x0 or
0x1.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Stripping non-zero-length functions does mean you have to
care about
> > more
> > >> sections.  For example .debug_locs would want to be fixed up
the same
> > way
> > >> as .debug_ranges, not because a debugger would care but so
that
> dumpers
> > >> would not run into the 0/0 brick wall.
> > >>
> > >
> > >Yep - in theory a consumer could actually use a loclist across
multiple
> > >sections (if a global variable got hoisted into a register for a
> function
> > >for instance), but I don't know of any producers doing this
today -
> until
> > >then, yeah, it's just a dumping problem and ld.bfd does
produce DWARF
> > that
> > >has that problem (because it resolves both relocations to dead
code
> > >(begin/end of a range) to zero in all sections except
debug_ranges, so
> > >terminates the loclist list early) - binutils objdump avoids
dumping the
> > >following corrupted fragment by only dumping hunks of debug_loc
starting
> > at
> > >places referenced from debug_info. Without debug_info it won't
dump
> > >anything from debug_loc - and if the references from debug_info,
parsed
> > >until the 0,0 terminator don't cover the whole debug_loc
section, it
> > prints
> > >messages saying there are "gaps".
> > >
> > >Agreed that you'd want debug_loc to have the same special
handling as
> > >debug_ranges if it has special handling. Though ideally we'd
pick a
> value
> > >that works equally everywhere? (-2, by the sounds of it)
> > >
> > >
> > >> We also fix up lengths in .debug_aranges to zero, although
there might
> > be
> > >> history behind that tactic that I’m not aware of; it seems
like it
> > ought to
> > >> be unnecessary, if consumers are aware of the special
address(es).
> > >>
> > >
> > >Yeah, no idea about debug_aranges... I'd have thought it'd
be fine with
> > the
> > >same approach as debug_ranges, but I haven't looked at
debug_aranges in
> a
> > >long time.
> > >
> > >I guess the only remaining question is: Since it's possible to
have code
> > on
> > >some systems down at address zero, or close enough to it that [0,
> length)
> > >might overlap with real exxecutable code addresses - does anyone
know of
> > >the inverse: where code is mapped up near uint32 max? Such that
that
> > usage
> > >wouldn't be able to sacrifice uint32 max - 1 to use as a
blessed value
> > here?
> > >
> > >- Dave
> > >
> > >
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> --paulr
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> *From:* Alexey Lapshin <alapshin at accesssoftek.com>
> > >> *Sent:* Thursday, May 28, 2020 9:03 AM
> > >> *To:* Sriraman Tallam <tmsriram at google.com>; Wei Mi
<wmi at google.com>;
> > >> Robinson, Paul <paul.robinson at sony.com>; Adrian
Prantl
> > <aprantl at apple.com>;
> > >> Jonas Devlieghere <jdevlieghere at apple.com>; Alexey
Lapshin <
> > >> a.v.lapshin at mail.ru>; Eric Christopher <echristo at
gmail.com>; Fangrui
> > Song
> > >> <maskray at google.com>; David Blaikie <dblaikie at
gmail.com>;
> > >> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> > >> *Subject:* Re: [llvm-dev] Range lists, zero-length functions,
linker
> gc
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Hi David,
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> >So there have been several recent discussions about the
issues around
> > >>
> > >> >DWARF-agnostic linking and gc-sections, linkonce function
definitions
> > >> being
> > >>
> > >> >dropped, etc - and just how much DWARF-awareness would be
suitable
> > >>
> > >> >in a linker to help with this situation.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> > I'd like to discuss a narrower instance of this
issue: Zero length
> > >> gc'd/deduplicated functions.
> > >>
> > >> > LLVM seems to at least produce zero length functions in
a few cases:
> > >> > * non-void function without a return statement
> > >> > * function definition containing only llvm_unreachable
> > >> > (both of these trap at -O0, but at higher optimization
levels even
> > the
> > >> trap
> > >>
> > >> > instruction is removed & you get the full power UB
of control
> > >> flowing off
> > >>
> > >> > the end of the function into whatever other bytes are
after that
> > >> function)
> > >>
> > >> > So, for context, debug_ranges (this whole issue
doesn't exist in
> > >> DWARFv5,
> > >>
> > >> > FWIW) is a list of address pairs, terminated by a pair
of zeros.
> > >>
> > >> > With function sections, or even just with normal C++
inline
> > functions,
> > >>
> > >> > the CU will have a range entry for that function that
consists of
> two
> > >> relocations
> > >>
> > >> > - to the start and end of the function. Generally the
start of the
> > >> function is the
> > >>
> > >> > start of the section, and the end is "start of
function + length of
> > >> function (aka addend)".
> > >>
> > >> >  Usually any relocation to the section would keep that
section
> > "alive"
> > >> during linking -
> > >>
> > >> > but that would cause debug info to defeat linker GC and
> > deduplication.
> > >> So there's
> > >>
> > >> > special rules for how linkers handle these relocations
in debug info
> > to
> > >> allow the
> > >>
> > >> > sections to be dropped - what do you write in the bytes
that
> > requested
> > >> the relocation?
> > >>
> > >> > Binutils ld: Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving
all
> > relocations
> > >> to dead
> > >>
> > >> > code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are all
resolved to
> > >> zero.
> > >>
> > >> > Gold and lld: Special cases all debug info sections -
resolving all
> > >> relocations
> > >>
> > >> > to "addend" (so begin usually goes to zero,
end goes to "size of
> > >> function")
> > >>
> > >> > These special rules are designed to ensure
omitted/gc'd/deduplicated
> > >> functions
> > >>
> > >> > don't cause the range list to terminate prematurely
(which would
> > happen
> > >> if begin/end
> > >>
> > >> > were both resolved to zero).
> > >>
> > >> >But with an empty function, gold and lld's strategy
here fails to
> > avoid
> > >> terminating a
> > >>
> > >> >range list by accident.
> > >>
> > >> > What should we do about it?
> > >>
> > >> >  1) Ensure no zero-length functions exist? (doesn't
address
> backwards
> > >>
> > >> > compatibility/existing functions/other compilers)
> > >> > 2) adopt the binutils approach to this (at least in
debug_ranges -
> > maybe
> > >> in all
> > >>
> > >> > debug sections? (doing it in other sections could break
)
> > >> >  3) Revisit the discussion about using an even more
'blessed' value,
> > >>
> > >> > like int max-1? (
> >
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
> RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiewZqMLtoA$
> > >>
> > <
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
> RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$
> > >
> > >>  )
> > >>
> > >> >  (I don't have links to all the recent threads about
this discussion
> > - I
> > >> think D59553
> > >>
> > >> > might've spawned a separate broader
discussion/non-review - oh,
> > Alexey
> > >> wrote a
> > >>
> > >> > good summary with links to other discussions here:
> > >>
> > >> > 
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> >
dev/2019-September/135068.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-
> > QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiey_aMV0lQ$
> > >>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> > dev/2019-
> >
> September/135068.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE
> > 70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY638NIRu2g$>
> > >>  )
> > >>
> > >> > Thoughts?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> I think for the problem of "zero length functions and
.debug_ranges"
> > >> binutils approach looks good:
> > >>
> > >> >Special cases only debug_ranges, resolving all
relocations to
> > >> >dead code to 1. In other debug sections, these values are
all
> resolved
> > to
> > >> >zero.
> > >>
> > >> But, this would not completely solve the problem from
> > >>
> >
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
> RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiewZqMLtoA$
> > >>
> > <
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D59553__;!!JmoZiZGBv3
> >
> RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63HSqgMOg$
> > >
> > >> - Overlapped address ranges. Binutils approach will solve the
problem
> > if
> > >> the address range specified as start_address:end_address.
While
> > resolving
> > >> relocations, it would replace such a range with 1:1.
> > >> However, It would not work if address ranges were specified
as
> > >> start_address:length since the length is not relocated. This
case
> could
> > be
> > >> additionally fixed by fast scan debug_info for High_PC
defined as
> > length
> > >> and changing it to 1. Something which you suggested here:
> > >>
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> > dev/2020-May/141599.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-
> > QbL7LtpIL-1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiexb8NU_Fw$
> > >>
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-
> > dev/2020-
> >
> May/141599.html__;!!JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b
> > 4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY63PsubKJQ$>
> > >> .
> > >>
> > >> So it looks like following solution could fix both problems
and be
> > >> relatively fast:
> > >>
> > >> "Resolve all relocations from debug sections into dead
code to 1.
> Parse
> > >> debug sections and replace HighPc of an address range
pointing to dead
> > code
> > >> and specified as length to 1".
> > >>
> > >> As the result all address ranges pointing into dead code
would be
> > marked
> > >> as zero length.
> > >>
> > >> There still exist another problem:
> > >>
> > >> DWARF4: "A range list entry (but not a base address
selection or end
> of
> > >> list entry) whose beginning and
> > >> ending addresses are equal has no effect because the size of
the range
> > >> covered by such an
> > >> entry is zero."
> > >>
> > >> DWARF5: "A bounded range entry whose beginning and
ending address
> > offsets
> > >> are equal
> > >> (including zero) indicates an empty range and may be
ignored."
> > >>
> > >> These rules allow us to ignore zero-length address ranges.
I.e., some
> > tool
> > >> reading DWARF is permitted to ignore related DWARF entries.
In that
> > case,
> > >> there could be ignored essential descriptions. That problem
could
> > happen
> > >> with -flto=thin example
> >
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://reviews.llvm.org/D54747*1503720__;Iw
> !!
> > JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!sRjL4Vdx9oC8TPFhKZ-QbL7LtpIL-
> > 1Zdb4OydT2xVhpDTRyUixtaozLYiezSujGHwQ$
> > >>
> >
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/reviews.llvm.org/D54747*1503720__;Iw
> !!
> >
> JmoZiZGBv3RvKRSx!r2Jqc2yEgxrb2QcQEocDHJBizj0KUKE70_57b4_rsj1TN0qB8NpBvVKtY
> > 637ju_eQw$>
> > >> . In this example, all type definitions except one were
replaced with
> > >> declarations by thinlto. The definition, which was left, is
in a piece
> > of
> > >> debug info related to deleted code. According to zero-length
rule,
> that
> > >> definition could be ignored, and finally, incomplete debug
info could
> > be
> > >> used.
> > >>
> > >> So, it probably should be forbidden to generate debug_info,
which
> could
> > >> become incomplete after removing pieces related to zero
length address
> > >> ranges. Otherwise, creating zero-length address ranges could
lead to
> > >> incomplete debug info.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Thank you, Alexey.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> _______________________________________________
> LLVM Developers mailing list
> llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/llvm-dev
>
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