This is based on D54720 by Sean Fertile.
When accessing a global symbol which is not defined in the translation unit,
compilers will generate instructions that load the address from the toc entry.
If the symbol is defined, non-preemptable, and addressable with a 32-bit
signed offset from the toc pointer, the address can be computed
directly. e.g.
addis 3, 2, .LC0@toc@ha # R_PPC64_TOC16_HA ld 3, .LC0@toc@l(3) # R_PPC64_TOC16_LO_DS, load the address from a .toc entry ld/lwa 3, 0(3) # load the value from the address .section .toc,"aw",@progbits .LC0: .tc var[TC],var
can be relaxed to
addis 3,2,var@toc@ha # this may be relaxed to a nop, addi 3,3,var@toc@l # then this becomes addi 3,2,var@toc ld/lwa 3, 0(3) # load the value from the address
We can delete the test ppc64-got-indirect.s as its purpose is covered by
newly added ppc64-toc-relax.s and ppc64-toc-relax-constants.s
Nice comment. Thank you for writing this.