http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=50284
Bug #: 50284 Summary: possible miscompilation with -fstrict-aliasing Classification: Unclassified Product: gcc Version: unknown Status: UNCONFIRMED Severity: normal Priority: P3 Component: c AssignedTo: unassig...@gcc.gnu.org ReportedBy: rafael.espind...@gmail.com I am not sure if the attached program is valid, but I think it is covered by c99 6.5 p7. On irc pinkia points out that it might be invalid. His arguments are * upcast is undefined in general, 6.5 p7 is trying to allow downcasting. * upcasting is defined when the type was originally that type. Two followup observations are that * If we read "z->data.XXX" as an access to the member (an not the full structure), all the access in the program are of the correct type. * On the implementation side, this "bug" show up when main is in a another translation unit too, a case where gcc could not know if "the type was originally that type". Philip Taylor pointed me at http://davmac.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/c99-revisited/ which has an interesting discussion about "Does accessing an object constitute access to the containing object"? This bug is "fixed" on trunk by 160947, but since that is an optimization change, it probably has just deactivated the code path that caused this behavior. For some context, this testcase is a reduction from: http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/a351ae35f2c4/js/src/jscntxtinlines.h#l179