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rucc_object/
section.rs

1//! What an object writer is given, which is a section of bytes and what the linker has to be
2//! told about them.
3//!
4//! Design: `spec/11-asm-objects-debug.md` sections 11.1 and 11.3.
5//!
6//! These types are here rather than beside the assembler that fills them in because they are what
7//! an object file is made of, and because a writer cannot depend on the thing that produces its
8//! input without the graph going the wrong way round. The assembler at layer rank 11 reaches down
9//! to these at rank 9, which is the direction `spec/18-package-layout.md` asks for.
10
11/// What a function is aligned to when nothing asked for more.
12///
13/// Sixteen because that is what every x86-64 toolchain puts a function at, and because it is what
14/// keeps the loop inside one from straddling one more cache line than it has to. Here rather than
15/// beside the assembler because the assembler pads to it and the writer records it, and two
16/// copies of one number is how the padding and the record come apart.
17pub const FUNC_ALIGN: u32 = 16;
18
19/// A text section, and what the linker has to be told about it.
20#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq)]
21pub struct Text {
22    /// The instructions, in the order they were laid out.
23    pub bytes: Vec<u8>,
24    /// Where each function starts and how long it is, in the order they were written.
25    pub funcs: Vec<Extent>,
26    /// Every place in the bytes that names something the linker has to find.
27    pub relocs: Vec<Reloc>,
28    /// What the whole section has to be aligned to, which is the largest alignment any function
29    /// in it asked for.
30    ///
31    /// A function is at a fixed offset inside the section, so a function at a multiple of two
32    /// hundred and fifty six is one only if the section itself is at one. The padding between the
33    /// functions is the assembler's half of the same job and this is the linker's.
34    pub align: u32,
35}
36
37impl Default for Text {
38    fn default() -> Self {
39        Self { bytes: Vec::new(), funcs: Vec::new(), relocs: Vec::new(), align: FUNC_ALIGN }
40    }
41}
42
43/// Where one function ended up.
44///
45/// How long a function is is a fact ELF records and Mach-O has no way to, so it is handed over
46/// rather than worked out again: the writer that wants it has it and the one that does not
47/// ignores it.
48#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq)]
49pub struct Extent {
50    /// The function's name, as the C program spelled it. The underscore an Apple symbol carries
51    /// is the object writer's business, not this one's.
52    pub name: String,
53    /// Where its first instruction is.
54    pub start: usize,
55    /// How many bytes of instructions it is, not counting the padding in front of the next one.
56    pub len: usize,
57    /// How the linker sees the name, which is what the C `static` reaches the object file as.
58    pub binding: Binding,
59    /// How far outside a shared library holding this the name reaches.
60    pub visibility: Visibility,
61}
62
63/// The variables a file defines, and what the linker has to be told about them.
64///
65/// One entry per variable rather than one section of everything, because where a variable goes is
66/// worked out from what it is and two of them that land in one section still have their own
67/// alignment, their own size and their own symbol. Putting them together is the writer's job and
68/// is the one part of it the three formats disagree about.
69#[derive(Debug, Clone, Default, PartialEq, Eq)]
70pub struct Data {
71    /// Every variable this file defines, in the order the module held them.
72    pub objects: Vec<Object>,
73}
74
75/// A second name for something the same file defines.
76///
77/// Not a section and not a byte of anything, which is the whole point of it: an alias is a symbol
78/// table entry pointing at an address something else already occupies, so a file with one in it is
79/// no larger than the same file without. `.set b, a` is what an assembler is told and a second
80/// entry at the first one's section, value and size is what a writer produces, and the two say the
81/// same thing.
82///
83/// The target is a name rather than an index into anything above, because the two output paths
84/// find it in different places: a listing hands the name to an assembler that resolves it, and a
85/// writer looks it up among the symbols it has already added.
86#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq)]
87pub struct Alias {
88    /// The name being defined, as the C program spelled it.
89    pub name: String,
90    /// The name it stands for, which has to be something this same file defines.
91    pub target: String,
92    /// How the linker sees the new name, which is not always how it sees the old one: the target
93    /// of `extern int b __attribute__((alias("a")))` may be a `static`.
94    pub binding: Binding,
95    /// How far outside a shared library holding this the new name reaches, which is its own
96    /// answer for the same reason the binding is: the attribute is written on the alias.
97    pub visibility: Visibility,
98}
99
100/// One global variable, laid out.
101#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq)]
102pub struct Object {
103    /// Its name, as the C program spelled it. The underscore an Apple symbol carries is the
104    /// object writer's business, not this one's.
105    pub name: String,
106    /// Its image, and nothing at all when it is zero filled and the file carries none of it.
107    pub bytes: Vec<u8>,
108    /// How many bytes it occupies, which is the length of the image except when there is none.
109    pub size: u64,
110    /// What it has to be aligned to, always a power of two.
111    pub align: u64,
112    /// Which section it goes in.
113    pub place: Place,
114    /// How the linker sees the name.
115    pub binding: Binding,
116    /// How far outside a shared library holding this the name reaches.
117    pub visibility: Visibility,
118    /// Every place in its image that holds the address of a symbol, counted from the start of
119    /// the image rather than from the start of the section it lands in.
120    pub relocs: Vec<Reloc>,
121}
122
123/// Which section a variable goes in.
124///
125/// Worked out from what the variable is rather than named by it, except in the one case where the
126/// program named it. A reader who wants to know why a variable is in `.rodata` should be able to
127/// find the answer in the variable.
128#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq)]
129pub enum Place {
130    /// Written to, and its image is not all zeros. `.data`.
131    Written,
132    /// Never written to, so it can go in a page the loader maps read only and every process
133    /// running the program can share. `.rodata`.
134    ReadOnly,
135    /// Never written to by the program, but written once by the dynamic linker, because its image
136    /// holds the address of something and an address is not known until the image is loaded.
137    /// `.data.rel.ro`.
138    ///
139    /// The section has to be writable for that one write and read only afterwards, which is what
140    /// the `PT_GNU_RELRO` segment is: the loader maps it, the relocations are applied, and then it
141    /// is turned read only before the program starts. Putting the variable in `.rodata` instead
142    /// means asking the linker to leave a relocation in a section that is never writable, and what
143    /// it does about that is give the whole image `DT_TEXTREL`, which gives up the protection the
144    /// section was for. Some hardened toolchains refuse the link outright.
145    RelocReadOnly {
146        /// Whether every address in the image is of something this file defines and does not
147        /// export, which means the link can resolve them all and none can be interposed.
148        ///
149        /// Those go in `.data.rel.ro.local`, which the linker puts in the first pages of the
150        /// segment, so the pages holding them are the ones the loader is done with soonest. It is
151        /// a hint about layout rather than a difference in what the section is.
152        local: bool,
153    },
154    /// All zeros, so the file says how big it is and carries none of it. `.bss`.
155    Zero,
156    /// A tentative definition, which is not in a section at all: the linker is asked for that
157    /// much zeroed space and merges every definition of the name into one. `.comm`.
158    Merged,
159    /// The section the program named, from `__attribute__((section(...)))`.
160    Named(String),
161}
162
163/// How the linker sees a name.
164///
165/// Three of the five linkages the IR has, because that is how many an object file can say. Which
166/// of the two weak ones a symbol had is a fact the optimizer needs and the linker does not.
167#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
168pub enum Binding {
169    /// Visible to every other object, and the definition here is the definition.
170    Global,
171    /// Invisible outside this object, which is what `static` at file scope means.
172    Local,
173    /// Visible, and allowed to lose to a definition in another object.
174    Weak,
175}
176
177/// How far outside a shared library a name reaches.
178///
179/// A different question from [`Binding`] and asked of a different linker. The binding is what the
180/// static linker does with a name while it is building the output, and this is what the dynamic
181/// linker may do with it once the output is a shared library and is being loaded. A hidden name is
182/// still global to the static link, so two files in the same library can call each other by it; it
183/// is simply not in the dynamic symbol table afterwards, so nothing outside can name it.
184///
185/// Written down here as its own thing rather than folded into the binding because it is the
186/// mistake tamnd/rucc#733 was: a writer that has one word for both ends up saying something about
187/// visibility while it thinks it is saying something about linkage, and what it said was hidden.
188///
189/// It means nothing for a [`Binding::Local`] name. `static` is already invisible to the whole
190/// world outside the file, and ELF records `STV_DEFAULT` for one, which is what gcc writes.
191#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, Default, PartialEq, Eq)]
192pub enum Visibility {
193    /// In the dynamic symbol table, and a reference from inside the library may be satisfied by a
194    /// definition somewhere else, which is what makes `LD_PRELOAD` work. What a name gets when
195    /// nothing said otherwise.
196    #[default]
197    Default,
198    /// Not in the dynamic symbol table at all, so nothing outside the library can name it and
199    /// every reference to it from inside binds here. `__attribute__((visibility("hidden")))`.
200    Hidden,
201    /// In the dynamic symbol table, so something outside can name it, but a reference from inside
202    /// the library binds to the definition inside it and cannot be interposed.
203    Protected,
204}
205
206/// One reference to something this file does not contain.
207#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Eq)]
208pub struct Reloc {
209    /// Where the bytes the linker writes over begin.
210    pub at: usize,
211    /// What is wanted, as the C program spelled it.
212    pub symbol: String,
213    /// What the linker is being asked for.
214    pub kind: Reference,
215    /// What to add to the distance, which is the constant the instruction already meant plus the
216    /// bytes between the hole and the end of the instruction, negated. An instruction counts from
217    /// where it ends and a relocation counts from where it starts, and this is the difference.
218    pub addend: i64,
219}
220
221/// What kind of thing a relocation is asking the linker for.
222///
223/// The first three are the distance from the end of an instruction to something, which is what
224/// every reference the code makes is, because this compiler generates position independent code and
225/// nothing else. They are told apart by what the linker is allowed to do about each one. The fourth
226/// is not a distance at all and is the only kind an image asks for, since an initializer holding the
227/// address of something holds the address itself.
228#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
229pub enum Reference {
230    /// A call, which the linker may satisfy with a stub that reaches further than the four bytes
231    /// would. `R_X86_64_PLT32` on ELF, and the same relocation a branch gets on the other two.
232    Call,
233    /// A datum, reached from the instruction pointer. `R_X86_64_PC32` on ELF.
234    Data,
235    /// A slot of the global offset table, reached from the instruction pointer, holding the
236    /// address of something another object may be the one that defines.
237    ///
238    /// The distance to the slot rather than to the thing, which is the whole difference: the
239    /// distance to the thing is a number only a link that puts the thing in this program can
240    /// work out, and a shared library is a link that does not. `R_X86_64_REX_GOTPCRELX` on ELF,
241    /// which says the instruction is a `mov` with a REX prefix and lets the linker turn it back
242    /// into the `lea` it would have been if the symbol had been here all along.
243    Got,
244    /// The address itself, written into an image. `int *p = &y;` and nothing else in C.
245    Address {
246        /// How many bytes of it are written, which is the pointer width except on a target with
247        /// a narrower relocation for it. `R_X86_64_64` and `R_X86_64_32` on ELF.
248        bytes: u8,
249    },
250}