We may need some sort of #[flatten]

[binarycat]

@the8472

Well, you could use a graph-theoretic approach. The starting point is your annotation, you define matchers (including wildcards) for paths through the graph and anything that matches gets inlined. But if it gets complex enough then yes, it shouldn't be an annotation but an external hint file, similar to PGO profiles, though perhaps human-writable if this is meant to be done manually.

this seems similar to my old proposal that allows annotating functions with attributes through an external file

Function attributes for optimization outside source files

several attributes (primarily #[inline] and #[cold]) are merely directives for how the program should be optimized, with no effect on the actual semantics of the code. i believe it would be helpful to be able to specify these attributes in an external file, instead of directly within the code. this would have several advantages: these files would be unable to affect program behavior, so they would be less crucial to review (currently someone could submit a PR adding 200 #[inline] annotations…