Can't force gcc linker remove unuse function - eclipse

I use gcc (via eclipse) to compile c code with .a file staticly , But I saw that the final binary file contains function from .a file that I don't call them from my C code.
I don't have the source code of .a file , only the .a file itself.
Tried to remove them by add -Wl,-gc-sections and -ffunction-sections to gcc , but still I saw many function in final binary file from .a file that didn't called from my c code.
Why is that?

Related

Cannot compile mex file on Windows

When I attempt to compile a .mex file on Windows, I get the following error. How can I fix this?
Error using mex
MEX cannot find library 'mwblas' specified with the -l option.
MEX looks for a file with one of the names:
libmwblas.lib
mwblas.lib
Please specify the path to this library with the -L option
As the error message states, you need to specify the directory in which the .lib file is located using the -L option or specify the full path to the .lib file as an input to mex. This library is located in matlabroot/extern/lib. So you could do something like
blas = fullfile(matlabroot,'extern','lib',computer('arch'),'microsoft', 'libmwblas.lib');
mex('-largeArrayDims', 'mymexfile.cpp', blas)
Or you can specify the folder with -L
libdir = fullfile(matlabroot,'extern','lib',computer('arch'),'microsoft');
mex('-largeArrayDims', ['-L', libdir], '-lmwblas', 'mymexfile.cpp', )
More info about compiling mex files to use LAPACK and BLAS is here

configure.h file and assembbler error in FFT from FFMPEG

i build a project on Eclipse using GCC Toolchain and arm-linux-gnueabi libraries
i have tow main issues using this codes attached (not my code, fft from ffmpeg with testcode to measure speed-error)
http://e2e.ti.com/cfs-file/__key/telligent-evolution-components-attachments/00-447-01-00-00-25-97-76/FFMPEG_5F00_FFT.zip
i have a C-code files with 2 .S files asm.S and neon_fft.S
i am not a software engineer but i understood that i use function keyword from asm.S file to use it in neon_fft.S
but it seems that project doesn't see the first file so i get the following error
Building file: ../src/fft_neon.S
Invoking: GCC Assembler
arm-linux-gnueabi-as -mcpu=cortex-a8 -mfpu=neon -I/usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/include -I/usr/arm-linux-gnueabi/include/asm -o "src/fft_neon.o" "../src/fft_neon.S"
../src/fft_neon.S: Assembler messages:
../src/fft_neon.S:34: Error: bad instruction `function fft4_neon'
../src/fft_neon.S:50: Error: bad instruction `endfunc'
also how can i get right configure.h file ?
The filename ends with a capital S. By convention, this indicates that the assembler source needs to be processed by the C preprocessor. If you use arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc instead of arm-linux-gnueabi-as then the file should assemble successfully.

mex linking of cuda code in separate compilation mode

I'm trying to use CUDA code inside MATLAB mex, under linux. With the "whole program compilation" mode, it works good for me. I take the following two steps inside Nsight:
(1) Add "-fPIC" as a compiler option to each .cpp or .cu file, then compile them separately, each producing a .o file.
(2) Set the linker command to be "mex" and add "-cxx" to indicate that the type of all the .o input files are cpp files, and add the library path for cuda. Also add a cpp file that contains the mexFunction entry as an additional input.
This works good and the resulted mex file runs well under MATLAB. After that when I need to use dynamical parallelism, I have to switch to the "separate compilation mode" in Nsight. I tried the same thing above but the linker produces a lot of errors of missing reference, which I wasn't able to resolve.
Then I checked the compilation and linking steps of the "separate compilation" mode. I got confused by what it is doing. It seems that Nsight does two compilation steps for each .cpp or .cu file and produces a .o file as well as a .d file. Like this:
/usr/local/cuda-5.5/bin/nvcc -O3 -gencode arch=compute_35,code=sm_35 -odir "src" -M -o "src/tn_matrix.d" "../src/tn_matrix.cu"
/usr/local/cuda-5.5/bin/nvcc --device-c -O3 -gencode arch=compute_35,code=compute_35 -gencode arch=compute_35,code=sm_35 -x cu -o "src/tn_matrix.o" "../src/tn_matrix.cu"
The linking command is like this:
/usr/local/cuda-5.5/bin/nvcc --cudart static --relocatable-device-code=true -gencode arch=compute_35,code=compute_35 -gencode arch=compute_35,code=sm_35 -link -o "test7" ./src/cu_base.o ./src/exp_bp_wsj_dev_mex.o ./src/tn_main.o ./src/tn_matlab_helper.o ./src/tn_matrix.o ./src/tn_matrix_lib_dev.o ./src/tn_matrix_lib_host.o ./src/tn_model_wsj_dev.o ./src/tn_model_wsj_host.o ./src/tn_utility.o -lcudadevrt -lmx -lcusparse -lcurand -lcublas
What's interesting is that the linker does not take the .d file as input. So I'm not sure how it dealt with these files and how I should process them with the "mex" command when linking?
Another problem is that the linking stage has a lot of options I don't understand (--cudart static --relocatable-device-code=true), which I guess is the reason why I cannot make it work like in the "whole program compilation" mode. So I tried the following:
(1) Compile in the same way as in the beginning of the post.
(2) Preserve the linking command as provided by Nsight but change to use "-shared" option, so that the linker produces a lib file.
(3) Invoke mex with input the lib file and another cpp file containing the mexFunction entry.
This way mex compilation works and it produces a mex executable as output. However, running the resulted mex executable under MATLAB produces a segmentation fault immediately and crashes MATLAB.
I'm not sure if this way of linking would cause any problem. More strangely, I found that the mex linking step seems to finish trivially without even checking the completeness of the executable, because even if I miss a .cpp file for some function that the mexFunction will use, it still compiles.
EDIT:
I figured out how to manually link into a mex executable which can run correctly under MATLAB, but I haven't figured out how to do that automatically under Nsight, which I can in the "whole program compilation" mode. Here is my approach:
(1) Exclude from build the cpp file which contains the mexFunction entry. Manually compile it with the command "mex -c".
(2) Add "-fPIC" as a compiler option to each of the rest .cpp or .cu file, then compile them separately, each producing a .o file.
(3) Linking will fail because it cannot find the main function. We don't have it since we use mexFunction and it is excluded. This doesn't matter and I just leave it there.
(4) Follow the method in the post below to manually dlink the .o files into a device object file
cuda shared library linking: undefined reference to cudaRegisterLinkedBinary
For example, if step (2) produces a.o and b.o, here we do
nvcc -gencode arch=compute_35,code=sm_35 -Xcompiler '-fPIC' -dlink a.o b.o -o mex_dev.o -lcudadevrt
Note that here the output file mex_dev.o should not exist, otherwise the above command will fail.
(5) Use mex command to link all the .o files produced in step (2) and step (4), with all necessary libraries supplied.
This works and produces runnable mex executable. The reason I cannot automate step (1) inside Nsight is because if I change the compilation command to "mex", Nsight will also use this command to generate a dependency file (the .d file mentioned in the question text). And the reason I cannot automate step (4) and step (5) in Nsight is because it involves two commands, which I don't know how to put them in. Please let me know if you knows how to do these. Thanks!
OK, I figured out the solution. Here are the complete steps for compiling mex programs with "separate compilation mode" in Nsight:
Create a cuda project.
In the project level, change build option for the following:
Switch on -fPIC in the compiler option of "NVCC compiler" at the project level.
Add -dlink -Xcompiler '-fPIC' to "Expert Settings" "Command Line Pattern" of the linker "NVCC Linker"
Add letter o to "Build Artifact" -> "Artifact Extension", since by -dlink in the last step we are making the output a .o file.
Add mex -cxx -o path_to_mex_bin/mex_bin_filename ./*.o ./src/*.o -lcudadevrt to "Post Build Steps", (add other necessary libs)
UPDATE: In my actual project I moved the last step to a .m file in MATLAB, because otherwise if I do it while my mex program is running, it could cause MATLAB crash.
For files needs to be compiled with mex, change these build option for each of them:
Change the compiler to GCC C++ Compiler in Tool Chain Editor.
Go back to compiler setting of GCC C++ Compiler and change Command to mex
Change command line pattern to ${COMMAND} -c -outdir "src" ${INPUTS}
Several additional notes:
(1) Cuda specific details (such as kernel functions and calls to kernel functions) must be hidden from the mex compiler. So they should be put in the .cu files rather than the header files. Here is a trick to put templates involving cuda details into .cu files.
In the header file (e.g., f.h), you put only the declaration of the function like this:
template<typename ValueType>
void func(ValueType x);
Add a new file named f.inc, which holds the definition
template<>
void func(ValueType x) {
// possible kernel launches which should be hidden from mex
}
In the source code file (e.g., f.cu), you put this
#define ValueType float
#include "f.inc"
#undef ValueType
#define ValueType double
#include "f.inc"
#undef ValueType
// Add other types you want.
This trick can be easily generalized for templated classes to hide details.
(2) mex specific details should also be hidden from cuda source files, since the mex.h will alter the definitions of some system functions, such as printf. So including of "mex.h" should not appear in header files that can potentially be included in the cuda source files.
(3) In the mex source code file containing the entry mexFunction, one can use the compiler macro MATLAB_MEX_FILE to selectively compile code sections. This way th source code file can be compiled into both mex executable or ordinarily executable, allowing debugging under Nsight without matlab. Here is a trick for building multiple targets under Nsight: Building multiple binaries within one Eclipse project
First of all, it should be possible to set up Night to use a custom Makefile rather than generate it automatically. See Setting Nsight to run with existing Makefile project.
Once we have a custom Makefile, it may be possible to automate (1), (4), and (5). The advantage of a custom Makefile is that you know exactly what compilation commands will take place.
A bare-bones example:
all: mx.mexa64
mx.mexa64: mx.o
mex -o mx.mexa64 mx.o -L/usr/local/cuda/lib64 -lcudart -lcudadevrt
mx.o: mxfunc.o helper.o
nvcc -arch=sm_35 -Xcompiler -fPIC -o mx.o -dlink helper.o mxfunc.o -lcudadevrt
mxfunc.o: mxfunc.c
mex -c -o mxfunc.o mxfunc.c
helper.o: helper.c
nvcc -arch=sm_35 -Xcompiler -fPIC -c -o helper.o helper.c
clean:
rm -fv mx.mexa64 *.o
... where mxfunc.c contains the mxFunction but helper.c does not.
EDIT: You may be able achieve the same effect in the automatic compilation system. Right click on each source file and select Properties, and you'll get a window where you can add some compilation options for that individual file. For linking options, open Properties of the project. Do some experiments and pay attention to the actual compilation commands that show up in the console. In my experience, custom options sometimes interact with the automatic system in a weird way. If this method proves too troublesome for you, I suggest that you make a custom Makefile; this way, at least we are not caught by unexpected side-effects.

Printing objects inside a lib file

What is the command to print .o files inside a .a file inside ?
man ar tells you the syntax is ar t name/of/lib as in ar t /usr/lib/libc.a

Extract object (*.o) files from an iPhone static library

I have a set of iPhone static libraries (a *.a file) in which I only call a few of the classes from.
I have used AR in the past (with linux libraries) to extract the object files from the static library, remove the unwanted object files and rearchive.
However, when I try this with an iPhone compliled static library, I get the following error:
ar: CustomiPhoneLib.a is a fat file (use libtool(1) or lipo(1) and ar(1) on it)
ar: CustomiPhoneLib.a: Inappropriate file type or format
Does anyone know how to extract the object files from an iphone compiled static library? Doing thie could potentially reduce the final file size.
That’s because your CustomiPhoneLib.a is a fat library, i.e., a library that contains more than one target architecture, namely armv6 and armv7 on iOS. You can use lipo to extract a specific architecture into another .a file, use ar and ranlib to manipulate it at will, and then use lipo again to recombine the manipulated .a files into a single .a fat file. For instance,
lipo CustomiPhoneLib.a -thin armv6 -output CustomiPhoneLibarmv6.a
lipo CustomiPhoneLib.a -thin armv7 -output CustomiPhoneLibarmv7.a
### use ar and ranlib at will on both files
mv CustomiPhoneLib.a CustomiPhoneLib.a.original
lipo CustomiPhoneLibarmv6.a CustomiPhoneLibarmv7.a -create -output CustomiPhoneLib.a
However, you don’t have to do this for the reason you’ve mentioned. The linker will only pull object (.o) files from a library (.a) if it needs to resolve some symbol reference. Therefore, if a library contains an object file whose symbols are never referenced during the linking process (i.e., symbols that are not effectively used), that object file won’t make it into the executable.
Code:
ar -t mylib.a
This will list all of the files in the archive.
Code:
ar -xv mylib.a myobj.o
This will extract the object give myobj.o from the library mylib.a.