To be honest, I didn't read the patch and simply assumed this was a simple
case
of forgetting to add volatile and getting bitten by a compiler that
optimizes
more agressively.
Either way it still is a valid point to be concerned about not only
compiler
bugs but also new compiler features.
100% agree on this point. The community needs some ways to keep up to date with those new compiler versions. I know it's hard since we work on different projects which usually needs some kind of stability (in the product and in the development process) so we tend to stick with a reference compiler that we know works.
However, if we don't keep up to date with those new compiler version, well fall in some intensive bug chasing session... and debugging at the assembly level is not that fun.
And it's a cycle, we test the new compiler version, we find bugs, we get an improved compiler which, with a nice side-effect, may solve other bugs.
That would be a good idea. Of course I don't think the volatile keyword in this case is hurting anything except maybe speed (negligble). Hopefully
this
can get fixed soon in gcc. Looking at the gcc project page, it seems that
3.0
is very close to be done.
3.0 ? That's good news in terms of technology advance... however I fear some late nites chasing bugs generated from that new version :)
Cheers! Francois
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François Jacques