LLVM (arm-none-eabi target) is producing an ARM.exidx section for C based code(?)

Question

Compiling a simple HelloWorld.c using Clang/LLVM (arm-none-eabi target) produces a relocation section '.rel.ARM.exidx' but using arm-gcc does not. These LLVM produced unwind table entries are correctly tagged as canunwind. But why are they even produced at all as they are not needed and just cause bloat as you get an entry for every C function in your AXF?

readelf edxidx from HelloWorld.o 
Relocation section '.rel.ARM.exidx' at offset 0x580 contains 2 entries:
Offset     Info    Type            Sym.Value  Sym. Name
00000000  00000b2a R_ARM_PREL31      00000000   .text
00000008  00000b2a R_ARM_PREL31      00000000   .text
Unwind table index '.ARM.exidx' at offset 0xcc contains 2 entries:
0x0 <print_uart0>: 0x1 [cantunwind]
0x54 <c_entry>: 0x1 [cantunwind]

In testing Clang defaults: If I pass "-funwind-tables" to Clang to force unwinding for even C functions, I get what I would expect had I been writing .cpp functions and "-fno-unwind-tables" results in the same as above.

Relocation section '.rel.ARM.exidx' at offset 0x5a4 contains 4 entries:
 Offset     Info    Type            Sym.Value  Sym. Name
00000000  00000b2a R_ARM_PREL31      00000000   .text
00000000  00001600 R_ARM_NONE        00000000   __aeabi_unwind_cpp_pr0
00000008  00000b2a R_ARM_PREL31      00000000   .text
00000008  00001600 R_ARM_NONE        00000000   __aeabi_unwind_cpp_pr0
Unwind table index '.ARM.exidx' at offset 0xcc contains 2 entries:
0x0 <print_uart0>: 0x8001b0b0
  Compact model index: 0
  0x01      vsp = vsp + 8
  0xb0      finish
  0xb0      finish
0x54 <c_entry>: 0x809b8480
  Compact model index: 0
  0x9b      vsp = r11
  0x84 0x80 pop {r11, r14}

1) Is there anyway to turn off the .ARM.exidx section when only using C functions as they will always be flagged as "cantunwind".

2) Anyway to strip this section during linking? (gc-section will not workof course since these table entries reference in-use functions)

3) Why does arm-gcc not create this section (well, it does if you are using new lib, nano, etc... but I use and link no std libs)

Answer 1

I'll answer (2), since that's what I did. Add to your linker script:

/DISCARD/ :
{
    *(.ARM.exidx)
}