RFC: Risc-V: Allow assembler to adjust relocs against symbols in mergeable sections

[Jan Beulich]

On 23.01.2026 13:12, Mark Wielaard wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 23, 2026 at 09:41:56AM +0100, Jan Beulich wrote:
>> Retaining this many symbols in RISC-V is for relaxation, aiui. Relaxation
>> is done on code (text) only, isn't it? In particular it isn't done on any
>> debug info. Hence I'd like to re-propose by SEC_DEBUGGING suggestion,
>> albeit not even limited to mergeable sections. That would likely reduce
>> symbol table sizes even further.
> 
> I am certainly no expert on relaxations, but I don't think this
> generalizes to all debug sections. Some debug sections describe
> ranges/sizes expressed as uleb128. For this RISC-V has
> R_RISCV_SET_ULEB128 and R_RISCV_SUB_ULEB128 relocation pairs. The size
> of the uleb128 is variable. So it seems to me that relocations into
> such (non-string, non-mergable) debug sections could still need a
> local symbol for indexing instead of an addend/offset against a
> section symbol.

Hmm, right, I forgot about the leb-s.

Jan