#8996: mark more things as const in C codegen -------------------------------------------+------------------------------- Reporter: slyfox | Owner: Type: feature request | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Compiler (CodeGen) | Version: 7.8.2 Keywords: | Operating System: Architecture: Unknown/Multiple | Unknown/Multiple Difficulty: Easy (less than 1 hour) | Type of failure: Blocked By: | None/Unknown Related Tickets: | Test Case: | Blocking: -------------------------------------------+------------------------------- Recently i've tried to build ghc-7.8.2 on ia64 and it overflows so called "short data" section. (it's where global 'static' variables live). I've looked at low-hanging fruits of squashing such global "variables". One source of them seems to be a string literal. Consider one-line module: {{{ module B (v) where v = "hello" }}} in '''-fvia-C''' (or unreg) mode it generates code like {{{ static char gibberish_str[] = "hello"; }}} It uselessly eats data section. The patch switches generator to emit: {{{ static const char gibberish_str[] = "hello"; }}} Some notes: 1. as far as I see native codegens already put ot to .rodata, thus it should be safe. 2. I likely didn't cover more cases, like - RelocatableReadOnlyData - and mysterious '''pprTop (CmmData _section (Statics lbl [CmmUninitialised size]))''' Size of unreg-stage2 on amd64 before and after the patch: {{{ $ size inplace/lib/bin/ghc-stage2 (unpatched) text data bss dec hex filename 81986382 20776344 44096 102806822 620b526 inplace/lib/bin/ghc-stage2 $ size inplace/lib/bin/ghc-stage2 (patched) text data bss dec hex filename 83648494 19062936 44096 102755526 61fecc6 inplace/lib/bin/ghc-stage2 }}} Text section increased for 1.6MBs (consts moved here, likely .rodata actually), data section decreased for 1.7MBs. I think with minor fiddling with linker flags we can merge equal constants later on. Thanks! -- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/8996 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler