On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 07:09:43PM -0400, Michael Meissner wrote: > On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 01:43:55PM -0400, David Edelsohn wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 1:39 PM, Bernhard Schommer > > <bernhardschom...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > > > if been working with the windriver Diab c compiler for 32bit ppc for and > > > encountered an incompatibly with the eabi version of the gcc 4.83. When > > > calling functions with more than 8 float arguments the gcc stores the 9th > > > float argument (and so on) as a float where as the diab compiler stores > > > the > > > argument as a double using 8 byte. > > > > > > I checked the EABI document and it seems to support the way the diab > > > compiler passes the arguments: > > > > > > "Arguments not otherwise handled above [i.e. not passed in registers] > > > are passed in the parameter words of the caller=E2=80=99s stack frame. > > > [...= > > > ] > > > float, long long (where implemented), and double arguments are > > > considered to have 8-byte size and alignment, *with float arguments > > > converted to double representation*. " > > > > > > Does anyone know the reason why the gcc passes the argument as single > > > float? > > > > Hi, Bernhard > > > > First, are you certain that you have the final version of the 32 bit > > PPC eABI? There were a few versions in circulation. > > > > Mike may remember the history of this. > > Well I worked on it around 1980 or so. I don't remember the details (nor do I > have the original manuals I was working from). From this distance, it sure > looks like a bug, but I'm not sure whether it should be fixed or > grand-fathered > in (and updating the stdargs.h support, if this is the offical calling > sequence).
I recall this question coming up before, and we decided to leave gcc as is so that new ppc32 gcc code stayed compatible with old ppc32 gcc code. Also, even if we were starting with a clean slate, we might want to pass floats without promoting to double: Stack frames are potentially smaller. Against that is the fact that we promote to double when calling an unprototyped function, so you'll run into trouble trying to define a function with more than eight float args if writing K&R code. Old programmers tend to know about such issues, and don't use float function parameters in K&R code. :) Incidentally, there are other rather more nasty parameter passing problems with ppc32, ones I would have liked to fix. For instance, "complex double" is passed in 4 gprs. -- Alan Modra Australia Development Lab, IBM
