Re: [PATCH 00/46] Allow inlining C helpers into Rust when using LTO

[Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Dec 02, 2025 at 07:37:24PM +0000, Alice Ryhl wrote:
> This patch series adds __rust_helper to every single rust helper. The
> patches do not depend on each other, so maintainers please go ahead and
> pick up any patches relevant to your subsystem! Or provide your Acked-by
> so that Miguel can pick them up.
> 
> These changes were generated by adding __rust_helper and running
> ClangFormat. Unrelated formatting changes were removed manually.
> 
> Why is __rust_helper needed?
> ============================
> 
> Currently, C helpers cannot be inlined into Rust even when using LTO
> because LLVM detects slightly different options on the codegen units.
> 
> * LLVM doesn't want to inline functions compiled with
>   `-fno-delete-null-pointer-checks` with code compiled without. The C
>   CGUs all have this enabled and Rust CGUs don't. Inlining is okay since
>   this is one of the hardening features that does not change the ABI,
>   and we shouldn't have null pointer dereferences in these helpers.
> 
> * LLVM doesn't want to inline functions with different list of builtins. C
>   side has `-fno-builtin-wcslen`; `wcslen` is not a Rust builtin, so
>   they should be compatible, but LLVM does not perform inlining due to
>   attributes mismatch.
> 
> * clang and Rust doesn't have the exact target string. Clang generates
>   `+cmov,+cx8,+fxsr` but Rust doesn't enable them (in fact, Rust will
>   complain if `-Ctarget-feature=+cmov,+cx8,+fxsr` is used). x86-64
>   always enable these features, so they are in fact the same target
>   string, but LLVM doesn't understand this and so inlining is inhibited.
>   This can be bypassed with `--ignore-tti-inline-compatible`, but this
>   is a hidden option.
> 
> (This analysis was written by Gary Guo.)
> 
> How is this fixed?
> ==================
> 
> To fix this we need to add __always_inline to all helpers when compiling
> with LTO. However, it should not be added when running bindgen as
> bindgen will ignore functions marked inline. To achieve this, we are
> using a #define called __rust_helper that is defined differently
> depending on whether bindgen is running or not.
> 
> Note that __rust_helper is currently always #defined to nothing.
> Changing it to __always_inline will happen separately in another patch
> series.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Alice Ryhl <aliceryhl@google.com>

For the whole series:

Reviewed-by: Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@gmail.com>

Regards,
Boqun

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