Dear Marek,
In message 201210312351.35977.marex@denx.de you wrote:
Could you please explain these supposed benefits in a bit more detail?
Yes, thanks for the review (I really needed one from you on this)!
So, here comes the list:
- It's cool to link with gcc, duh ;-)
Is it - and why exactly?
- You can enable LTO eventually -- long term plan -- which proved can shrink
the code size a bit
Do you have a workign example? You know, we don;t like adding dead code...
- Usage of LLVM/CLANG is now much more straightforward
Please elucidate?
- Binutils usually lag behind the GCC development a bit, by using GCC to do the
link, we can remedy this problem
Grrrrghhhg. I lost you here. By not calling ld directly (where we know exactly what we are doing), but through a (somewhat unknown) GCC framework, we can magicly adjust any (claimed - by you) version differences? I cannot parse this.
But actually, the 2) is the most important part. LTO will hopefully help us optimize U-Boot for size even better than it is now. But that will still need much more research. So this is only a patch that shall prepare the groundwork for this further research.
As is, it's just unused or dead code that adds a lot of complexity and buys nothing. Please submit as part of a patch series that makes successfull (and tested) use of LTO.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk