Re: MIPS gas relaxation still doesn't work

[Richard Sandiford <rsandifo at redhat dot com>]

"H. J. Lu" <hjl@lucon.org> writes:
> > gcc is usually much better at filling delay slots than gas is.  gas just
> > looks at the previous instruction to see if it's suitable.  gcc can pull
> > pull instructions from the branch target instead.
> 
> I don't think so. Please check out g++.dg/opt/longbranch1.C. gcc 3.2
> generates:
> 
> $L7488:
>         lw      $2,52($fp)
>         .set    noreorder
>         .set    nomacro
> 
>         bne     $2,$0,$L7493
>         nop
>         j       $L2
>         nop
> 
>         .set    macro
>         .set    reorder
> $L7493:
> 
> It is no better than gas and disables the branch relaxation. I don't
> why gcc shouldn't let gas handle it in this case. That is gcc should
> never fill the delay slot with nop.

Huh?  Obviously there are going to be cases when neither gcc nor
gas can fill a slot.  Just because you've found one doesn't mean
that gcc never fills a delay that gas wouldn't.  Compare gcc's
dbr_schedule with gas's append_insn.

The fact gcc fills this slot with a nop is just incidental.
gcc is not written on the assumption that the assembler will
relax branches.  It's easy to see it filling that slot with
a non-nop in other cases.  And, what's more, filling it with
a non-nop that gas wouldn't consider.

When you said:

> Can gcc be be modified not to generate noreorder/nomacro for branchs if
> gas is used?

you seemed to be arguing that gcc should start relying on
branch relaxation, but that really seems the wrong way to go.

Richard