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Date:   Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:49:05 -0700
From:   "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
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To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
CC:     David Daney <david.s.daney@gmail.com>,
        David Daney <ddaney.cavm@gmail.com>,
        Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
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        Michal Marek <mmarek@suse.cz>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-mips@linux-mips.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
        David Daney <david.daney@cavium.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1 1/5] scripts: Add sortextable to sort the kernel's
 exception table.
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On 04/19/2012 08:42 PM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> 
> I don't think we can get _ASM_EXTABLE() to do that work for us, because
> we'd need to subtract symbols from two different sections.  We would
> need the postprocessing tool to take care this, but guess what, we can
> do exactly that (and then, as I mentioned, just zero out the relocation
> section.)
> 

Ah, apparently it is possible to generate relocations relative to the
start of the current section:

# define _ASM_EXTABLE(from,to)      			\
        __ASM_EX_SEC ;              			\
        _ASM_ALIGN ;                			\
        .long (from)-__ex_table,(to)-__ex_table ;       \
        .previous

Then all the postprocessor would have to do is to zero out the
relocation section, and we would always just add the base of the
particular __ex_table section.

We need to make sure the module loader works, too, and not to break the
__{get,put}_user_ex macros (which would need to use a new variant of
_ASM_EXTABLE()).

There is still a disturbing number of open-coded __ex_table instances
too; those all need to be converted.

Looks like a worthwhile project but not for tonight.

All of this is for x86... other architectures would need to be converted
in whatever way is appropriate.

	-hpa