bug in g77 -O2 optimization found -- resending with attachment
Jonathan DeSena
jonathan.desena@jhuapl.edu
Mon Jan 8 14:48:00 GMT 2001
Originator Jonathan DeSena
Organization JHU/APL
Confidential NO
Synopsis
g77 generates incorrect code for a particular looping construct
when optimization of -O2 or higher is used.
Severity serious
Priority medium
Category fortran
Class wrong-code
Release 2.95.3 19991030 (prerelease)
Environment Linux Mandrake 7.2 on a Pentium III
Description
A simple old style fortran loop operating on a small array produces
incorrect results when optimization -O2 or higher is used to compile the
code. The program seems to be accessing the wrong array member, or
using the wrong subscript inside the if statement. ARRAY(I) should not
equal ARRAY(I1) (where I1=I+1). When optimized ARRAY(I) seems to access
ARRAY(I1), thus any calculation depending on such values in a real
program are incorrect. Adding/Removing certain lines seems to eliminate
the problem. See attached source code.
This same code compiles correctly under Sun's f77 for Solaris/SPARC
under all optimization levels. The problem was noted when porting code
from Solaris/SPARC to ix86/Linux.
I worry that I may not be able to as easily find similar cases in other
code where the output might not be as noticeably wrong as it was in this
case. For what appears to be such a simple (albeit deprecated) code
sample, the incorrect results are distressing. I hope this can be fixed
rather quickly.
How-To-Repeat
Test case source code file test.for is attached. The following
shows compilation and execution on the command line:
_______________________________________________________________________
$ g77 -v -O2 -o test test.for
g77 version 2.95.3 19991030 (prerelease) (from FSF-g77 version 0.5.25
19991030 (prerelease))
Driving: g77 -v -save-temps -O2 -o test test.for -lg2c -lm
Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux/2.95.3/specs
gcc version 2.95.3 19991030 (prerelease)
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux/2.95.3/f771 test.for -quiet
-dumpbase test.f -O2 -version -fversion -o test.s
GNU F77 version 2.95.3 19991030 (prerelease) (i586-mandrake-linux)
compiled by GNU C version 2.95.3 19991030 (prerelease).
GNU Fortran Front End version 0.5.25 19991030 (prerelease)
as -V -Qy -o test.o test.s
GNU assembler version 2.10.90 (i586-mandrake-linux) using BFD version
2.10.0.24
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux/2.95.3/collect2 -m elf_i386
-dynamic-linker /lib/ld-linux.so.2 -o test /usr/lib/crt1.o
/usr/lib/crti.o /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux/2.95.3/crtbegin.o
-L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux/2.95.3
-L/usr/i586-mandrake-linux/lib test.o -lg2c -lm -lgcc -lc -lgcc
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux/2.95.3/crtend.o /usr/lib/crtn.o
$ ./test
IF THESE TWO NUMBERS ARE EQUAL, THE CODE IS BAD: 60. 60.
_______________________________________________________________________
Fix
Actually, the only real fix is to get the compiler -O2+
optimizations working correctly. However, it is possible to replace the
misbehaving code with a logically equivalent while loop (not Fortran 77
standard, but most compilers I know accept it). This is what I have
done to get the code where this problem appeared working correctly.
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