Poor code generation for M68k volatile variables

[Eric Norum]

Declaring a variable `volatile' makes access to it less efficient on
m68k targets.

Consider the following program:

unsigned long foo;
volatile unsigned long bar;

void bletch (void)
{
        foo++;
        bar++;
}

void bletchp (void)
{
        ++foo;
        ++bar;
}


Compiling with:
eric@pollux 441> m68k-rtems-gcc --version
2.95.2
eric@pollux 442>  m68k-rtems-gcc -O9 -fomit-frame-pointer -S a.c

gives the following assembler file:

        .file   "a.c"
gcc2_compiled.:
        .comm   foo,4,2
        .comm   bar,4,2
.text
.globl bletch
        .type    bletch,@function
bletch:
        addq.l #1,foo
        move.l bar,%d0
        addq.l #1,%d0
        move.l %d0,bar
        rts
        nop
.Lfe1:
        .size    bletch,.Lfe1-bletch
.globl bletchp
        .type    bletchp,@function
bletchp:
        addq.l #1,foo
        move.l bar,%d0
        addq.l #1,%d0
        move.l %d0,bar
        rts
        nop
.Lfe2:
        .size    bletchp,.Lfe2-bletchp
        .ident  "GCC: (GNU) 2.95.2 19991024 (release)"


Notice how it takes 3 times as many instructions to increment `bar'?

I don't see how doing the increment with a single
      addq.l #1,bar
would violate the semantics of volatile.  The variable would still be
read, modified, and written as a 32-bit value.  The compiler certainly
knows how to increment variables with this instruction as shown above in
the increment of `foo'.

This sort of inefficiency pops up in the worst possible places -- often
where the code is accessing I/O registers and I am trying to squeeze
every bit of performance out of the hardware.  It also shows up in a
very heavily used piece of code in the RTEMS (Real-Time Executive for
Multiprocessor Systems) core.  I realize that I could work around this,
but I'd rather not have to start adding `asm' statements all over the
place.

-- 
Eric Norum                                 eric@cls.usask.ca
Canadian Light Source                      Phone: (306) 966-6308
University of Saskatchewan                 FAX:   (306) 966-6058
Saskatoon, Canada.