Re: [MiNT] ELF object linking

[Markus Fröschle <markus@mubf.de>]

Am 26.02.2014 um 22:57 schrieb Vincent Rivière <vincent.riviere@freesbee.fr>:

> On 26/02/2014 21:46, Eero Tamminen wrote:
>> Couldn't that in some cases improve instruction
>> cache utilization?
> 
> It does.
> 
> With ELF, assembler instructions and read-only data are separated in 2 different areas (.text and .rodata). This is optimal since the instruction cache gets filled with instructions only, and the data cache only with data.
> 
> With our current a.out implementation, assembler instructions and read-only data are mixed in the same area (.text). As a result, both caches are partially filled with both instructions and data, wasting space, therefore performance.
> 
> However, I don't know how much performance gain we could get with that. Probably nothing extraordinary.
> 
> -- 
> Vincent Rivière
> 
> 

Not sure if that’s (always) the case. I have examples for jump tables of large switch statements located in the .text segment.