[PATCH v2] x86: Cache the symbol table when packing relative relocations

[H.J. Lu]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2026 at 7:53 AM H.J. Lu <hjl.tools@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> When packing relative relocations, x86 linker may load the same symbol
> table repeatedly, which can take a long time.  On Intel Core i7-1195G7
> with 32GB RAM, it takes more than 45 minutes to create an output with
> -pie -z pack-relative-relocs from an input with 208025 code sections.
> Cache the symbol table to reduce the link time to less than 2 seconds.
>
> On the same machine, creating 3.1GB clang executable in LLVM 21.1.3 debug
> build:
>
> user            55.39 seconds
> system          6.71 seconds
> total           65.80 seconds
> maximum set(GB) 10.43
> page faults     2406941
>
> PR ld/33765
> * elfxx-x86.c (elf_x86_relative_reloc_record_add): Remove
> keep_symbuf_p.
> (_bfd_x86_elf_link_relax_section): Updated.  Cache the symbol
> table to avoid loading it again.
>
> --
> H.J.

Here is the v2 patch to cache the symbol table before the loop.

-- 
H.J.
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