There are two motivations.
-fno-pic -fstack-protector -mstack-protector-guard=global created
__stack_chk_guard is referenced directly on all ELF OSes except FreeBSD.
This patch allows referencing the symbol indirectly with
-fno-direct-access-external-data.
Some Linux kernel folks want
-fno-pic -fstack-protector -mstack-protector-guard-reg=gs -mstack-protector-guard-symbol=__stack_chk_guard
created __stack_chk_guard to be referenced directly, avoiding
R_X86_64_REX_GOTPCRELX (even if the relocation may be optimized out by the linker).
https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/60116
Why they need this isn't so clear to me.
Add module flag "direct-access-external-data" and set the dso_local property of
the stack protector symbol. The module flag can benefit other LLVMCodeGen
synthesized symbols that are not represented in LLVM IR.
Nowadays, with -fno-pic being uncommon, ideally we should set
"direct-access-external-data" when it is true. However, doing so would require
~90 clang/test tests to be updated, which are too much.
As a compromise, we set "direct-access-external-data" only when it's different
from the implied default value.
I think the presubmit bot failed due to clang-format changes to code introduced in this hunk.