Re: Plans for Linux ELF "i686+" ABI ? Like SPARC V8+ ?

["Michael Meissner" <michael dot meissner at amd dot com>]

On Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 12:53:13AM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
> > Actually no.  In 32-bit mode, double is aligned on a 4 byte boundary, not an 8
> > byte boundary, unless you use -malign-double, which breaks the ABI.  This has
> > been a 'feature' of the original AT&T 386 System V ABI that Linux uses for
> > 32-bit x86 processors.  With the SCO mess, it may be hard to ever change that
> > ABI....
> 
> My gcc doesn't agree with you (I actually checked before posting)
> 
> ~> cat t.c
> 
> int main(void)
> {
>         double x;
>         printf("%d\n", __alignof__(x));
>         return 0;
> }
> ~> gcc -m32 -o t t.c
> t.c: In function âmainâ:
> t.c:5: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of built-in function âprintfâ
> ~> ./t
> 8
> ~> 
> 

Doubles that are scalar variables are aligned on a 64-bit boundary, but doubles
that are within structures are only aligned to a 32-bit boundary, which comes
from the published i386 ABI from System V.  Here is the code in question from
gcc/config/i386/i386.h:

	/* The published ABIs say that doubles should be aligned on word
	   boundaries, so lower the alignment for structure fields unless
	   -malign-double is set.  */

	/* ??? Blah -- this macro is used directly by libobjc.  Since it
	   supports no vector modes, cut out the complexity and fall back
	   on BIGGEST_FIELD_ALIGNMENT.  */
	#ifdef IN_TARGET_LIBS
	#ifdef __x86_64__
	#define BIGGEST_FIELD_ALIGNMENT 128
	#else
	#define BIGGEST_FIELD_ALIGNMENT 32
	#endif
	#else
	#define ADJUST_FIELD_ALIGN(FIELD, COMPUTED) \
	   x86_field_alignment (FIELD, COMPUTED)
	#endif

And this is where we recompute the alignment in i386.c:

	int
	x86_field_alignment (tree field, int computed)
	{
	  enum machine_mode mode;
	  tree type = TREE_TYPE (field);

	  if (TARGET_64BIT || TARGET_ALIGN_DOUBLE)
	    return computed;
	  mode = TYPE_MODE (TREE_CODE (type) == ARRAY_TYPE
			    ? get_inner_array_type (type) : type);
	  if (mode == DFmode || mode == DCmode
	      || GET_MODE_CLASS (mode) == MODE_INT
	      || GET_MODE_CLASS (mode) == MODE_COMPLEX_INT)
	    return MIN (32, computed);
	  return computed;
	}


-- 
Michael Meissner, AMD
90 Central Street, MS 83-29, Boxborough, MA, 01719, USA
michael.meissner@amd.com