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LLVM Bitcode Linker: A self contained linker for nvptx and other targets
This PR introduces a new linker named `llvm-bitcode-linker`. It is a `self-contained` linker that can be used to link programs in `llbc` before optimizing and compiling to native code. It will first be used internally in the Rust compiler to enable tests for the `nvptx64-nvidia-cuda` target as the original `rust-ptx-linker` is deprecated. It will then be provided to users of the `nvptx64-nvidia-cuda` target with the purpose of linking ptx. More targets than nvptx will also be supported eventually.
The PR introduces a new unstable `LinkerFlavor` for the compiler. The compiler will also not be shipped with rustc but most likely instead be shipped in it's own unstable component (a follow up PR will be opened for this). This means that merging this PR should not add any stability guarantees.
When more details of `self-contained` is implemented it will only be possible to use the linker when `-Clink-self-contained=+linker` is passed.
<details>
<summary>Original Description</summary>
**When this PR was created it was focused a bit differently. The original text is preserved here in case there's some interests in it**
I have experimenting with approaches to replace the ptx-linker and enable the nvptx target tests again. I think it's time to get some feedback on the approach.
### The problem
The only useful linker for the nvptx target is [this crate](https://github.com/denzp/rust-ptx-linker). Since this linker performs linking on llvm bitcode it needs to track the llvm version of rustc and use the same format. It has not been maintained for 3+ years and must be considered abandoned. Over the years rust have upgraded LLVM while the linker has been left to bitrot. It is no longer in a usable state.
Due to the difficulty of keeping the ptx-linker up to date outside of tree the nvptx tests was [disabled a long time ago](
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Cargo.toml | ||
README.md |
rustc_target
contains some very low-level details that are
specific to different compilation targets and so forth.
For more information about how rustc works, see the rustc dev guide.