On Thu, 3 Dec 2020, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> These changes have been successfully bootstrapped and regression-tested
> with the `powerpc64le-linux-gnu' and `x86_64-linux-gnu' native systems;
> verification with the `vax-netbsdelf' target using `powerpc64le-linux-gnu'
> host has been underway.
>
> I meant to do size checks across the test suites with the native builds,
> but I forgot that the test framework deletes built test cases after use by
> default. I have restarted verification now with a modified configuration
> and will have results sometime tomorrow.
So for the record, `size' has reported no text changes whatsoever with
the `x86_64-linux-gnu' compilation or the testsuite, which makes me fairly
confident no code change has resulted. With `powerpc64le-linux-gnu' there
were a couple of text size changes across libgo objects, namely these:
powerpc64le-linux-gnu/libgo/cmd/go/internal/modfetch.gox
powerpc64le-linux-gnu/libgo/cmd/go/internal/modfetch.o
powerpc64le-linux-gnu/libgo/cmd/go/internal/modload.gox
powerpc64le-linux-gnu/libgo/cmd/go/internal/modload.o
powerpc64le-linux-gnu/libgo/html/template.gox
powerpc64le-linux-gnu/libgo/html/template.o
powerpc64le-linux-gnu/libgo/net/.libs/http.o
however upon a closer inspection all the differences turned out to be in
`.go_export' sections, whose flags are "ALLOC, EXCLUDE". Oddly they are
considered text due to an obscure change to `size' from years ago:
Mon Jan 20 14:24:04 1997 Ian Lance Taylor <i...@cygnus.com>
* size.c (berkeley_sum): Rewrite. Skip sections which are not
SEC_ALLOC. Count SEC_READONLY sections as text.
Switching to trunk binutils and `--format=gnu', added last year, made the
phenomenon go away. Sadly among all the wondering around the submission
here: <https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2019-01/msg00260.html> nobody
thought of actually asking Ian what the motivation for that old change of
his might have been.
Ian, it's been a while and the mailing lists carried much less actual
discussion about changes made, but do you remember by any chance?
Maciej
