Possible wrong-way example in gcc4-4-2 documentation of __builtin_expect

Jim Avera james_avera@comcast.net
Tue Dec 20 00:42:00 GMT 2011


Hello,

The online docs at
http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.4.2/gcc/Other-Builtins.html
has a confusing (to me) example of __builtin_expect.  Could someone take 
a look at this?

<start quote from above-referenced page>
   Since you are limited to integral expressions for exp, you should
   use constructions such as

           if (__builtin_expect (ptr != NULL, 1))
             error ();
<end quote>

This seems backwards.    The return value of __builtin_expect
is the first argument, namely (ptr != NULL), which presumably is true in 
the NON-error case.   The following example might be more helpful:

           if (__builtin_expect (ptr == NULL, 0))
             error ();

Apologies if I'm not reading this correctly.

-Jim



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