Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!hitachi!jon
From: jon@hitachi.uucp (Jon Ryshpan)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: Is this (gasp) a chip bug?
Message-ID: <463@hitachi.uucp>
Date: 30 Jul 90 20:47:08 GMT
References: <1990Jul23.223341.26431@cbnewsc.att.com>
Reply-To: jon@hitachi.UUCP (Jon Ryshpan)
Distribution: na
Organization: Hitachi America - Semiconductor & IC Div.
Lines: 65

In article <1990Jul23.223341.26431@cbnewsc.att.com> imdave@cbnewsc.att.com (david.e.bodenstab) writes:

>Here is a little program derived from a problem we tracked down in a
>driver:
>
>	main()
>	{
>	    unsigned y = 0x7ffff0ff;
>	    unsigned x = 0x7ffff000;
>
>	    while (1) {
>		if ( ((int)(y - x)) < 0 )
>		    printf("WRONG x=%x y=%x (y - x)=%x\n",x,y,y-x);
>		x++;
>		y++;
>	    }
>	}
>
>This program `fails' on both a 386 and another cpu in-house -- the
>range of values for the `failure' are:
>
>	0x80000000 <= y <= 0x800000fe
>	0x7fffff01 <= x <= 0x7fffffff
>

It's a compiler bug.  On the 68020 (Sun 3) I get the following code from
the standard Sun compiler:

	L14:
		movl	a6@(-0x4),d0
		subl	a6@(-0x8),d0
		tstl	d0
		jge	L16
		...
		jbsr	_printf
		lea	sp@(0x10),sp
	L16:

This is correct.  Note the key instruction "tstl d0", which is the
result of the cast from unsigned to int.

Under Interactive 386/ix, using the Interactive port of the ATT C
compiler (or whatever is the standard C compiler for 386/ix ver 2.02) I
get this code:

	.L16:
		movl    -4(%ebp),%eax
		subl    -8(%ebp),%eax
		jge     .L17
		...
		call    printf
		addl    $16,%esp
	.L17:

This code is wrong since there is no cast from unsigned to int.  It's
not possible to fix this by using an unsigned rather than a signed
branch, since this would just substitute one range of values which
produce an incorrect branch for another.

Jonathan Ryshpan		<...!uunet!hitachi!jon>

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