https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=103134
Bug ID: 103134 Summary: Redundant DW_AT_entry_pc tags for inlined functions Product: gcc Version: unknown Status: UNCONFIRMED Severity: normal Priority: P3 Component: debug Assignee: unassigned at gcc dot gnu.org Reporter: wcohen at redhat dot com Target Milestone: --- According to the DWARF5.pdf standard DW_AT_entry_pc can be optional "2.18 Entry Address": If no DW_AT_entry_pc attribute is present, then the entry address is assumed to be the same as the base address of the containing scope. Eliminating those unneeded DW_AT_entry_pc attributes would save some space in the generated debuginfo. To determine the possible saving the following dwgrep (https://pmachata.github.io/dwgrep/) script was used to find how often this occurs in the Fedora 34 kernel and showed over 200,000 instances where the DW_AT_low_pc and DW_AT_entry_pc were the same: $ dwgrep /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/5.14.15-200.fc34.x86_64/vmlinux -e ' let A := entry (?TAG_inlined_subroutine) ?DW_AT_low_pc ?DW_AT_entry_pc; let LOW := ((A ?DW_AT_low_pc @DW_AT_low_pc) || (0xdeadbeef)); let ENTRY := ((A ?DW_AT_entry_pc @DW_AT_entry_pc) || (0xdeadbeef)); (LOW == ENTRY) ([A name, ENTRY, LOW ])' | grep \\[ | wc 214604 643812 12804153 There were less than 3500 cases where the DW_AT_entry_pc was omitted: $ dwgrep /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/5.14.15-200.fc34.x86_64/vmlinux -e ' let A := entry (?TAG_inlined_subroutine); let RANGE := ((A ?DW_AT_ranges @DW_AT_ranges) || (A ?DW_AT_low_pc @DW_AT_low_pc) || (0xdeadbeef)); let ENTRY := ((A ?DW_AT_entry_pc @DW_AT_entry_pc) || (0xdeadbeef)); (ENTRY == 0xdeadbeef) ([A name, ENTRY, RANGE ])' | grep \\[ | wc 3448 12235 278068 There were even fewer cases of DW_AT_entry_pc != DW_AT_low_pc (some might be due to Bug 99654): ]$ dwgrep /usr/lib/debug/lib/modules/5.14.15-200.fc34.x86_64/vmlinux -e ' let A := entry (?TAG_inlined_subroutine) ?DW_AT_low_pc ?DW_AT_entry_pc; let LOW := ((A ?DW_AT_low_pc @DW_AT_low_pc) || (0xdeadbeef)); let ENTRY := ((A ?DW_AT_entry_pc @DW_AT_entry_pc) || (0xdeadbeef)); (LOW != ENTRY) ([A name, ENTRY, LOW ])' | grep \\[ | sort > entry_pc_diff.log $ wc entry_pc_diff.log 445 1335 27515 entry_pc_diff.log According to koji build of the package (https://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=1849253) the kernel was built with gcc-11.2.1-1.fc34