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authoralk3pInjection <webmaster@raspii.tech>2024-02-04 16:16:35 +0800
committeralk3pInjection <webmaster@raspii.tech>2024-02-04 16:16:35 +0800
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tree00a54a6e25601e43876d03c1a4a12a749d4a914c /share/doc/gccint/LTO-Overview.html
Import stripped Arm GNU Toolchain 13.2.Rel1HEADumineko
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+<head>
+<title>GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) Internals: LTO Overview</title>
+
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+<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
+<link href="LTO.html#LTO" rel="up" title="LTO">
+<link href="LTO-object-file-layout.html#LTO-object-file-layout" rel="next" title="LTO object file layout">
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+<body lang="en" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#800080" alink="#FF0000">
+<a name="LTO-Overview"></a>
+<div class="header">
+<p>
+Next: <a href="LTO-object-file-layout.html#LTO-object-file-layout" accesskey="n" rel="next">LTO object file layout</a>, Up: <a href="LTO.html#LTO" accesskey="u" rel="up">LTO</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Option-Index.html#Option-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
+</div>
+<hr>
+<a name="Design-Overview"></a>
+<h3 class="section">25.1 Design Overview</h3>
+
+<p>Link time optimization is implemented as a GCC front end for a
+bytecode representation of GIMPLE that is emitted in special sections
+of <code>.o</code> files. Currently, LTO support is enabled in most
+ELF-based systems, as well as darwin, cygwin and mingw systems.
+</p>
+<p>By default, object files generated with LTO support contain only GIMPLE
+bytecode. Such objects are called &ldquo;slim&rdquo;, and they require that
+tools like <code>ar</code> and <code>nm</code> understand symbol tables of LTO
+sections. For most targets these tools have been extended to use the
+plugin infrastructure, so GCC can support &ldquo;slim&rdquo; objects consisting
+of the intermediate code alone.
+</p>
+<p>GIMPLE bytecode could also be saved alongside final object code if
+the <samp>-ffat-lto-objects</samp> option is passed, or if no plugin support
+is detected for <code>ar</code> and <code>nm</code> when GCC is configured. It makes
+the object files generated with LTO support larger than regular object
+files. This &ldquo;fat&rdquo; object format allows to ship one set of fat
+objects which could be used both for development and the production of
+optimized builds. A, perhaps surprising, side effect of this feature
+is that any mistake in the toolchain leads to LTO information not
+being used (e.g. an older <code>libtool</code> calling <code>ld</code> directly).
+This is both an advantage, as the system is more robust, and a
+disadvantage, as the user is not informed that the optimization has
+been disabled.
+</p>
+<p>At the highest level, LTO splits the compiler in two. The first half
+(the &ldquo;writer&rdquo;) produces a streaming representation of all the
+internal data structures needed to optimize and generate code. This
+includes declarations, types, the callgraph and the GIMPLE representation
+of function bodies.
+</p>
+<p>When <samp>-flto</samp> is given during compilation of a source file, the
+pass manager executes all the passes in <code>all_lto_gen_passes</code>.
+Currently, this phase is composed of two IPA passes:
+</p>
+<ul>
+<li> <code>pass_ipa_lto_gimple_out</code>
+This pass executes the function <code>lto_output</code> in
+<samp>lto-streamer-out.cc</samp>, which traverses the call graph encoding
+every reachable declaration, type and function. This generates a
+memory representation of all the file sections described below.
+
+</li><li> <code>pass_ipa_lto_finish_out</code>
+This pass executes the function <code>produce_asm_for_decls</code> in
+<samp>lto-streamer-out.cc</samp>, which takes the memory image built in the
+previous pass and encodes it in the corresponding ELF file sections.
+</li></ul>
+
+<p>The second half of LTO support is the &ldquo;reader&rdquo;. This is implemented
+as the GCC front end <samp>lto1</samp> in <samp>lto/lto.cc</samp>. When
+<samp>collect2</samp> detects a link set of <code>.o</code>/<code>.a</code> files with
+LTO information and the <samp>-flto</samp> is enabled, it invokes
+<samp>lto1</samp> which reads the set of files and aggregates them into a
+single translation unit for optimization. The main entry point for
+the reader is <samp>lto/lto.cc</samp>:<code>lto_main</code>.
+</p>
+<a name="LTO-modes-of-operation"></a>
+<h4 class="subsection">25.1.1 LTO modes of operation</h4>
+
+<p>One of the main goals of the GCC link-time infrastructure was to allow
+effective compilation of large programs. For this reason GCC implements two
+link-time compilation modes.
+</p>
+<ol>
+<li> <em>LTO mode</em>, in which the whole program is read into the
+compiler at link-time and optimized in a similar way as if it
+were a single source-level compilation unit.
+
+</li><li> <em>WHOPR or partitioned mode</em>, designed to utilize multiple
+CPUs and/or a distributed compilation environment to quickly link
+large applications. WHOPR stands for WHOle Program optimizeR (not to
+be confused with the semantics of <samp>-fwhole-program</samp>). It
+partitions the aggregated callgraph from many different <code>.o</code>
+files and distributes the compilation of the sub-graphs to different
+CPUs.
+
+<p>Note that distributed compilation is not implemented yet, but since
+the parallelism is facilitated via generating a <code>Makefile</code>, it
+would be easy to implement.
+</p></li></ol>
+
+<p>WHOPR splits LTO into three main stages:
+</p><ol>
+<li> Local generation (LGEN)
+This stage executes in parallel. Every file in the program is compiled
+into the intermediate language and packaged together with the local
+call-graph and summary information. This stage is the same for both
+the LTO and WHOPR compilation mode.
+
+</li><li> Whole Program Analysis (WPA)
+WPA is performed sequentially. The global call-graph is generated, and
+a global analysis procedure makes transformation decisions. The global
+call-graph is partitioned to facilitate parallel optimization during
+phase 3. The results of the WPA stage are stored into new object files
+which contain the partitions of program expressed in the intermediate
+language and the optimization decisions.
+
+</li><li> Local transformations (LTRANS)
+This stage executes in parallel. All the decisions made during phase 2
+are implemented locally in each partitioned object file, and the final
+object code is generated. Optimizations which cannot be decided
+efficiently during the phase 2 may be performed on the local
+call-graph partitions.
+</li></ol>
+
+<p>WHOPR can be seen as an extension of the usual LTO mode of
+compilation. In LTO, WPA and LTRANS are executed within a single
+execution of the compiler, after the whole program has been read into
+memory.
+</p>
+<p>When compiling in WHOPR mode, the callgraph is partitioned during
+the WPA stage. The whole program is split into a given number of
+partitions of roughly the same size. The compiler tries to
+minimize the number of references which cross partition boundaries.
+The main advantage of WHOPR is to allow the parallel execution of
+LTRANS stages, which are the most time-consuming part of the
+compilation process. Additionally, it avoids the need to load the
+whole program into memory.
+</p>
+
+<hr>
+<div class="header">
+<p>
+Next: <a href="LTO-object-file-layout.html#LTO-object-file-layout" accesskey="n" rel="next">LTO object file layout</a>, Up: <a href="LTO.html#LTO" accesskey="u" rel="up">LTO</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Option-Index.html#Option-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
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+</html>