Re: [patch] AVR: Sort .text.* input sections by their name.

On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 08:44:51PM +0200, Georg-Johann Lay via Binutils wrote:
> This patch sorts the .text.* input sections by their name
> in order to increase code locality, e.g. for code from
> libgcc and AVR-LibC.  For example, libgcc puts their
> multiplications and helpers in .text.libgcc.mul, but
> without SORT the linker may locate functions related by
> their input section far apart, inserting function from
> unrelated input sections in between them.

While you may have found one particular case where sorting by name
helps, I suspect this is generally not a good idea.  I believe in
general you will make -ffunction-sections code locality worse by using
this patch.  Consider an object file with lots of small functions,
calls mostly within that object file.  You don't want to sort them
such that functions from other object files separate them.

> 	PR ld/34415
> ld/
> 	* scripttempl/avr.sc (text): SORT *(.text.*) input sections.
> 	by their name.
> 
> diff --git a/ld/scripttempl/avr.sc b/ld/scripttempl/avr.sc
> index b3cf421a78b..e918181700b 100644
> --- a/ld/scripttempl/avr.sc
> +++ b/ld/scripttempl/avr.sc
> @@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ cat <<EOF
>      KEEP (*(.init9))}
>      *(.text)
>      ${RELOCATING+. = ALIGN(2);
> -    *(.text.*)
> +    *(SORT(.text.*))
>      . = ALIGN(2);
>      *(.fini9)  /* _exit() starts here.  */
>      KEEP (*(.fini9))

-- 
Alan Modra