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Re: Link-time optimzation
Bernd Schmidt wrote:
So, maybe a simpler strategy could be to make minor modifications to gas
and gcc so that the former is linked in and the latter can pass strings
to it? Maybe that could get us a performance improvement without the
need for a massive overhaul of all backends, and the need to duplicate
object code generation.
I don't see that passing strings "internally" would be significantly
faster than the current setup, and depending on how it was done, might
even end up being slower.
And it is well to remember that assembler technology is not trivial.
There are environments in which the object formats are quite complex.
I think it may well be possible to achieve an improvement of a few
per cent in overall performance, but I would guess that the ratio
of effort to improvement could be very high.
Furthermore, I think you would certainly want to retain the possibility
of generating assembler files for two reasons at least:
1) it is very helpful to be able to see the exact asm that is generated,
knowing that it really IS the exact asm, and not some possibly incorrect
attempt to reconstruct it.
2) when doing a new port for a new target with a new peculiar object
format, you really don't want to have to tackle the details of the
object format as part of the port.