[RFC PATCH 0/6] linkage: better symbol aliasing

From: Mark Rutland
Date: Mon Dec 06 2021 - 07:47:23 EST


This series aims to make symbol aliasing simpler and more consistent.
The basic idea is to replace SYM_FUNC_START_ALIAS(alias) and
SYM_FUNC_END_ALIAS(alias) with a new SYM_FUNC_ALIAS(alias, name), so
that e.g.

SYM_FUNC_START(func)
SYM_FUNC_START_ALIAS(alias1)
SYM_FUNC_START_ALIAS(alias2)
... asm insns ...
SYM_FUNC_END(func)
SYM_FUNC_END_ALIAS(alias1)
SYM_FUNC_END_ALIAS(alias2)
EXPORT_SYMBOL(alias1)
EXPORT_SYMBOL(alias2)

... can become:

SYM_FUNC_START(name)
... asm insns ...
SYM_FUNC_END(name)

SYM_FUNC_ALIAS(alias1, func)
EXPORT_SYMBOL(alias1)

SYM_FUNC_ALIAS(alias2, func)
EXPORT_SYMBOL(alias2)

This avoids repetition and hopefully make it easier to ensure
consistency (e.g. so each function has a single canonical name and
associated metadata).

I'm sending this as an RFC since I want to check:

a) People are happy with the idea in principle.

b) People are happy with the implementation within <linux/linkage.h>.

... and I haven't yet converted the headers under tools/, which is
largely a copy+paste job.

I've build+boot tested arm64 and x86 defconfig without issues, and I've
pushed the series to my `linkage/alias-rework` branch on git.kernel.org,
atop v5.16-rc3:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mark/linux.git linkage/alias-rework
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/mark/linux.git/log/?h=linkage/alias-rework

Thanks,
Mark.

Mark Rutland (6):
linkage: add SYM_{ENTRY,START,END}_AT()
linkage: add SYM_FUNC_{LOCAL_,}ALIAS()
arm64: remove __dma_*_area() aliases
arm64: clean up symbol aliasing
x86: clean up symbol aliasing
linkage: remove START/END ALIAS macros

Documentation/asm-annotations.rst | 11 ++--
arch/arm64/include/asm/linkage.h | 24 ---------
arch/arm64/kvm/hyp/nvhe/cache.S | 5 +-
arch/arm64/lib/clear_page.S | 5 +-
arch/arm64/lib/copy_page.S | 5 +-
arch/arm64/lib/memchr.S | 5 +-
arch/arm64/lib/memcmp.S | 6 +--
arch/arm64/lib/memcpy.S | 21 ++++----
arch/arm64/lib/memset.S | 12 +++--
arch/arm64/lib/strchr.S | 6 ++-
arch/arm64/lib/strcmp.S | 6 +--
arch/arm64/lib/strlen.S | 6 +--
arch/arm64/lib/strncmp.S | 8 +--
arch/arm64/lib/strnlen.S | 6 ++-
arch/arm64/lib/strrchr.S | 5 +-
arch/arm64/mm/cache.S | 59 +++++++++-----------
arch/x86/boot/compressed/head_32.S | 3 +-
arch/x86/boot/compressed/head_64.S | 3 +-
arch/x86/lib/memcpy_64.S | 10 ++--
arch/x86/lib/memmove_64.S | 4 +-
arch/x86/lib/memset_64.S | 6 +--
include/linux/linkage.h | 86 ++++++++++++++++++------------
22 files changed, 146 insertions(+), 156 deletions(-)

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2.30.2