>> Furthermore, if you're working in chromium, you should be aware that >> the new behavior is exactly what the Chrome developers are arguing >> for, as it makes the startup faster. It sounds to me like you're >> working at cross purposes with the other developers on that project. > > Ah, perhaps this goes to answer my question from the other mail: why > switch to '.init_array'?
This has a long and complicated history. I tried to explain some of that here: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-bugs/2010-12/msg01493.html I wasn't part of the GCC community at the time, but I think that .ctors was originally used instead of .init or .init_array precisely because the order of execution of .init/.init_array was backwards from the desired order of execution for constructors (leaving aside the fact that it was backwards from the desired order of execution for *any* kind of initializer). Now that GCC has finally moved from .init to .init_array, they're simply trying to consolidate on the One True Initializer Mechanism. In doing so, it would be desirable to correct that mistake we made so long ago in the gABI, but that's where we ran up against the concerns of the Chrome and Firefox developers who care more about startup performance than about constructor ordering (but, apparently, not enough to use linker options to reorder the code in order to get both good performance *and* proper execution order). -cary
