-fpatchable-function-entry is used by Linux kernel arm64/parisc. The feature works for x86, but does not leverage multi-byte NOP.
% cat a.c int foo() { return 0; } % gcc -fpatchable-function-entry=5,0 -c a.c % objdump -d a.o ... 0000000000000000 <foo>: 0: 90 nop 1: 90 nop 2: 90 nop 3: 90 nop 4: 90 nop 5: 55 push %rbp 6: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp 9: b8 00 00 00 00 mov $0x0,%eax e: 5d pop %rbp f: c3 retq (I am not sure who should be notified. I CCed x86-64-port maintainer (Jan Hubicka <hubi...@ucw.cz>), as listed on gcc/MAINTAINERS.)