Re: [PATCH] parisc: fix module loading failure of large kernel modules (take 4)

Jeremy Fitzhardinge
2009-01-01T07:13:00Z

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Some gcc versions will inline weak functions if they are in scope - even
> if there is a non-weak function somewhere else. So you MUST NOT have the
> weak definition in the same file (or indirectly called through some inline
> functions in a header file) as the call. Because if you do, then any user
> with the wrong version of gcc will get the weak function semantics, even
> if it was meant to be overridden by something else.
>

Yes. I think this behaviour is considered to be desperately broken by
the gcc developers and has been fixed in all recent gccs. There are a
couple of broken versions, and there have been patches floating around
to just refuse to use them; otherwise __weak is effectively unusable.
(Ah, I see Adrian has posted it again and everyone agrees with it.)

On the other hand, I have seen a couple of instances of "inline __weak"
which is insane, but I don't know if gcc does anything crazy with it, or
if its common enough to bother warning about.

J