The debug-information section added in the last commit is about what GAS
gets wrong against a file with no instructions in it: .loc is flushed when
an instruction is assembled, and this backend assembles none. CFI is the
opposite case and worth recording beside it. Its advances come from frag
positions, so .cfi_def_cfa_offset interleaved with .byte comes out exact --
measured, readelf --debug-dump=frames on a .byte-only function gives the
right advances.
The content is a constant, and that is the header's claim about the frame
model paying for itself. rsp is written exactly twice, so: on entry the CFA
is rsp+8; push rbp makes it rsp+16 with the saved rbp at cfa-16; mov rsp,rbp
moves the rule onto rbp and it stays there for the whole body; after leave
rsp is rbp+8 and the CFA is rsp+8 again. Five directives, three sites --
emit_fn, emit_main and emit_globals_init, which have the same prologue.
emit_main has no closing rule because it has no epilogue: it leaves through
flan_exit and the ud2 after that is unreachable, so the rbp rule holds to
the last byte, which is what a backtrace out of anything main called wants.
gdb did not need this -- its prologue analyser already unwound out of
flan_bounds_error into flan.main with a line number, because push rbp;
mov rbp,rsp; sub rsp,N is the pattern it recognises. It is here because the
description is now stated rather than guessed, and because a break at the
very first byte of a function -- before the push -- now unwinds from a rule
rather than from a heuristic.
Gated on --debug so a release build's assembly stays byte-for-byte what it
was. That is conservative rather than principled: the description is correct
in every build and a release build is where a crash would most want it. What
stops it being unconditional is only that nothing measures the .eh_frame it
would add, and another lane is measuring backend cost right now.
Joseph Ferano
c9c23c5079