fpic and O3 optimization flags - c

Question

I'm trying to compile main.c which uses libnothing.so. Here is the source code:
main.c
#include "nothing.h"
int main(void)
{
doAlmostNothing();
return 0;
}
nothing.c
#include "nothing.h"
void doNothingStatic(void) {
volatile int x = 45;
x++;
}
void doNothing(void) {}
void doAlmostNothing(void)
{
doNothingStatic();
doNothing();
}
nothing.h
void doAlmostNothing(void);
First I compile nothing.c like this without fpic: gcc -c nothing.c I'll get this error: /usr/bin/ld: nothing.o: relocation R_X86_64_PC32 against symbol doNothing can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC when building the .so gcc -shared nothing.o -o libnothing.so
But if I compile it using O3 gcc -c -O3 nothing.c I don't get the relocation error anymore.
Is -O3 adding fpic by default ?
EDIT
I changed a bit the code by adding void as suggested in the comments, removed static from doNothingStatic and add some dummy work in it.
Here is the console output when running the commands:
bil#bil-VirtualBox:~/Documents/test/linking$ gcc-7 -c nothing.c
bil#bil-VirtualBox:~/Documents/test/linking$ gcc-7 -shared nothing.o -o nothing.so
/usr/bin/ld: nothing.o: relocation R_X86_64_PC32 against symbol `doNothingStatic' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
/usr/bin/ld: final link failed: Bad value
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
bil#bil-VirtualBox:~/Documents/test/linking$ gcc-7 -c -O3 nothing.c
bil#bil-VirtualBox:~/Documents/test/linking$ gcc-7 -shared nothing.o -o libnothing.so
bil#bil-VirtualBox:~/Documents/test/linking$ ls
libnothing.so main main.c main.o nothing.c nothing.h nothing.o libnothing.so
I also looked on the assembly that objdump provides:
without O3:
nothing.o: file format elf64-x86-64
Disassembly of section .text:
0000000000000000 <doNothingStatic>:
0: 55 push %rbp
1: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp
4: c7 45 fc 2d 00 00 00 movl $0x2d,-0x4(%rbp)
b: 8b 45 fc mov -0x4(%rbp),%eax
e: 83 c0 01 add $0x1,%eax
11: 89 45 fc mov %eax,-0x4(%rbp)
14: 90 nop
15: 5d pop %rbp
16: c3 retq
0000000000000017 <doNothing>:
17: 55 push %rbp
18: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp
1b: 90 nop
1c: 5d pop %rbp
1d: c3 retq
000000000000001e <doAlmostNothing>:
1e: 55 push %rbp
1f: 48 89 e5 mov %rsp,%rbp
22: e8 00 00 00 00 callq 27 <doAlmostNothing+0x9>
27: e8 00 00 00 00 callq 2c <doAlmostNothing+0xe>
2c: 90 nop
2d: 5d pop %rbp
2e: c3 retq
with O3
nothing.o: file format elf64-x86-64
Disassembly of section .text:
0000000000000000 <doNothingStatic>:
0: c7 44 24 fc 2d 00 00 movl $0x2d,-0x4(%rsp)
7: 00
8: 8b 44 24 fc mov -0x4(%rsp),%eax
c: 83 c0 01 add $0x1,%eax
f: 89 44 24 fc mov %eax,-0x4(%rsp)
13: c3 retq
14: 66 90 xchg %ax,%ax
16: 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 nopw %cs:0x0(%rax,%rax,1)
1d: 00 00 00
0000000000000020 <doNothing>:
20: f3 c3 repz retq
22: 0f 1f 40 00 nopl 0x0(%rax)
26: 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 nopw %cs:0x0(%rax,%rax,1)
2d: 00 00 00
0000000000000030 <doAlmostNothing>:
30: c7 44 24 fc 2d 00 00 movl $0x2d,-0x4(%rsp)
37: 00
38: 8b 44 24 fc mov -0x4(%rsp),%eax
3c: 83 c0 01 add $0x1,%eax
3f: 89 44 24 fc mov %eax,-0x4(%rsp)
43: c3 retq
Indeed it seems the functions are inlined when using -O3

Answer 1

No, it is just that the function doNothing was inlined and thus there were no intra-module function calls left.
The relocation type means an absolute function or data access using a sign-extended 32-bit pointer, i.e. basically something within the first 2 GiB of virtual memory. When compiled with -O3 all function calls were inlined and therefore the calls using the relocations are not needed.

Answer 2

No, -O3 does not turn on -fPIC.
Here is the a list of flags turned on by the different optimization levels.
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize-Options.html