Re: asm volatile("":::"memory) uncertainty.

[Andrew Haley <aph at redhat dot com>]

On 05/10/2016 04:58 PM, Tom Udale wrote:
> To my mind, the only reason that these would not be considered "memory 
> references" is because the compiler has already decided to put the 
> memory into registers (true these are mostly automatic variables so they 
> can easily be put into registers).  But from an abstract machine 
> standpoint a=b is a memory read and a memory write is it not (or is that 
> a totally incorrect statement)?  It seems odd therefore that a register 
> allocation choice can fundamentally alter program behavior.

An auto variable is only considered to be "memory" if its address
is taken with & .  "memory" means that this object is reachable from
some pointer somewhere.

> It appears that the "memory" clobberer is operating at a level much 
> lower than the C statement which means you _really_ need to be careful 
> with it since what is memory and  what is not could easily change with 
> the addition or removal of reference (i.e. something that once was held 
> in memory is not any longer because a removed reference made another 
> variable be better suited to the stack allowing the one-time memory 
> variable the better candidate for a register).

Not really.  If a variable is not addressable by any means then it
can't be affected by a memory access.  Whether the compiler spills
that variable to a stack frame makes no difference.

Andrew.