Skip to content

Statically emit ELF notes for Swift's metadata sections. #78411

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Closed
wants to merge 4 commits into from

Conversation

grynspan
Copy link
Contributor

@grynspan grynspan commented Jan 2, 2025

ELF does not preserve section information like Mach-O and COFF do. This PR adds additional exported symbols on platforms that use ELF to help us find Swift's metadata sections at runtime. These symbols are emitted as ELF notes, which are a kind of optional metadata that can be iterated at runtime using the dl_iterate_phdr() function.

Although the ELF standard says that notes can be stripped without affecting a program's behavior, in practice they are used widely for similar purposes e.g. by GCC/ld and various OS vendors.

A more permanent solution may involve teaching llvm and lld about some new section name or attribute that translates to a specific custom ELF program header in the PT_LOUSERPT_HIUSER range, then emitting that information for all of Swift's standard sections as well as anything marked @_section.

Resolves #76698.

ELF does not preserve section information like Mach-O and COFF do. This PR adds
additional exported symbols on platforms that use ELF to help us find Swift's
metadata sections at runtime. These symbols are emitted as [ELF notes](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/elf.5.html),
which are a kind of optional metadata that can be iterated at runtime using the
[`dl_iterate_phdr()`](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/dl_iterate_phdr.3.html)
function.

Although the ELF standard says that notes can be stripped without affecting a
program's behavior, in practice they are used widely for similar purposes e.g.
by GCC/ld and various OS vendors.

A more permanent solution may involve teaching llvm and lld about some new
section name or attribute that translates to a specific custom ELF program
header in the `PT_LOUSER`–`PT_HIUSER` range, then emitting that information for
all of Swift's standard sections as well as anything marked `@_section`.

Resolves #76698.
@grynspan grynspan added Linux Platform: Linux runtime The Swift Runtime Android Platform: Android FreeBSD Platform: FreeBSD labels Jan 2, 2025
@grynspan grynspan requested review from kubamracek and artemcm January 2, 2025 20:30
@grynspan grynspan self-assigned this Jan 2, 2025
@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 2, 2025

@swift-ci test

@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 2, 2025

@swift-ci please smoke test Linux

grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 2, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
@compnerd
Copy link
Member

compnerd commented Jan 2, 2025

I think that this should be run past the Platform Steering Group with an evolution proposal.

@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 2, 2025

I think that this should be run past the Platform Steering Group with an evolution proposal.

I believe @kubamracek and @artemcm are looking into this general area. This specific change is ultimately meant to let us use dl_iterate_phdr() rather than __attribute__((constructor)) so that we can lazily register metadata like we do on Darwin.

@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 2, 2025

@swift-ci please smoke test Linux

@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 2, 2025

@compnerd and I are discussing off-GitHub.

@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 2, 2025

@swift-ci please smoke test Linux

@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 3, 2025

I built a local copy of swiftrt.o, added it to my local toolchain, built a test package, and confirmed the notes are present in the output and relos are correctly applied. 🥳

@grynspan
Copy link
Contributor Author

grynspan commented Jan 3, 2025

@swift-ci test

grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 3, 2025
This PR leverages the change at swiftlang/swift#78411 to let us look up Swift's metadata sections (specifically `"swift5_tests"`) by looking for the emitted ELF notes rather than by calling the Swift runtime function `swift_enumerateAllMetadataSections()` (which we'd like to remove.)

Resolves #735.
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 3, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 6, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 6, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 17, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 19, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 21, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 22, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 22, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 30, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Jan 30, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 3, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 4, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 5, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 6, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 20, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 21, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 21, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 21, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 21, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 23, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 23, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 23, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 24, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 24, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 25, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 25, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Feb 27, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Mar 5, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Mar 7, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Mar 10, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Mar 10, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Mar 10, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the Swift
compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a dedicated section
of the test executable being built. At runtime, we discover that section and
read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking Swift's
type metadata table looking for types that conform to a protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really need)
   for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in order to
   walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is intended
   to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed to be written
   in C++.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in the
future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested type (which
is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future direction" and not
covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that should
be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which lets us define
additional arbitrary test content record types. The layout of this section is
covered in depth in the new [TestContent.md](Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the experimental
`"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature. We continue to emit protocol-conforming types
for now—that code will be removed if and when the experimental feature is
properly supported (modulo us adopting relevant changes to the feature's API.)

#735
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411
grynspan added a commit to swiftlang/swift-testing that referenced this pull request Mar 11, 2025
This PR uses the experimental symbol linkage margers feature in the
Swift compiler to emit metadata about tests (and exit tests) into a
dedicated section of the test executable being built. At runtime, we
discover that section and read out the tests from it.

This has several benefits over our current model, which involves walking
Swift's type metadata table looking for types that conform to a
protocol:

1. We don't need to define that protocol as public API in Swift Testing,
1. We don't need to emit type metadata (much larger than what we really
need) for every test function,
1. We don't need to duplicate a large chunk of the Swift ABI sources in
order to walk the type metadata table correctly, and
1. Almost all the new code is written in Swift, whereas the code it is
intended to replace could not be fully represented in Swift and needed
to be written in C++.

This change will be necessary to support Embedded Swift because there is
no type metadata section emitted for embedded targets.

The change also opens up the possibility of supporting generic types in
the future because we can emit metadata without needing to emit a nested
type (which is not always valid in a generic context.) That's a "future
direction" and not covered by this PR specifically.

I've defined a layout for entries in the new `swift5_tests` section that
should be flexible enough for us in the short-to-medium term and which
lets us define additional arbitrary test content record types. The
layout of this section is covered in depth in the new
[TestContent.md](https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-testing/blob/main/Documentation/ABI/TestContent.md)
article.

This functionality is only available if a test target enables the
experimental `"SymbolLinkageMarkers"` feature and only if Swift Testing
is used as a package (not as a toolchain component.) We continue to emit
protocol-conforming types for now—that code will be removed if and when
the experimental feature is properly supported (modulo us adopting
relevant changes to the feature's API.)

## See Also

#735
#764
swiftlang/swift#76698
swiftlang/swift#78411

### Checklist:

- [x] Code and documentation should follow the style of the [Style
Guide](https://github.com/apple/swift-testing/blob/main/Documentation/StyleGuide.md).
- [x] If public symbols are renamed or modified, DocC references should
be updated.
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment
Labels
Android Platform: Android FreeBSD Platform: FreeBSD Linux Platform: Linux runtime The Swift Runtime
Projects
None yet
Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

ELF: Please provide a way to statically access Swift metadata without using a runtime call.
3 participants