#11285: Split objects makes static linking really slow -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Reporter: ezyang | Owner: Type: feature request | Status: new Priority: high | Milestone: Component: Compiler | Version: 7.11 (Linking) | Resolution: | Keywords: Operating System: Unknown/Multiple | Architecture: Type of failure: Compile-time | Unknown/Multiple performance bug | Test Case: Blocked By: | Blocking: Related Tickets: | Differential Rev(s): Wiki Page: | -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Comment (by olsner): ghc could very well default to use gold if it's available, I think. There are a few reasons to explicitly need bfd-ld (e.g. when using linker scripts), but for linking normal programs it shouldn't matter either way. To support "special" use cases, we'd just need to make sure `-optl-fuse- ld=bfd` overrides ghc's setting.
Could we enhance GHC to support running the linker in a "fast mode"
I think this is not entirely up to the linking stage, as both split objects and function-sections are compile-time rather than link-time settings. Something that could be done at the linking stage is linking against the incrementally linked libraries-for-ghci - both split objects and split sections are undone by the incremental linking step. That might just run into different bottlenecks though :) Since #8405, `--gc-sections` is sent to the linker too. IIRC my previous experiments didn't find that it affected link times much unless actually using `-split-sections` for the installed libraries, but it could be moved to an explicit flag if need be. The downside of that is that users then have to learn a new flag to get smaller binaries. -- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/11285#comment:5 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler