From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Richard Stallman To: law@cygnus.com Cc: mark@codesourcery.com, jbuck@synopsys.COM, gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: type based aliasing again Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 18:02:00 -0000 Message-ID: <199909160625.CAA18718@psilocin.gnu.org> References: <2304.937209305@upchuck.cygnus.com> X-SW-Source: 1999-09n/msg00679.html Message-ID: <19990930180200.42AT51PplzgC35lQgsuEXD_6BnqyoVFEReVUFgcDo0E@z> Like it or not, people will come to depend on this feature, My proposal is not a feature. When you call it a "feature", you're not considering the proposal I made. The argument about "people depending on this" is flawed in the idea that such dependency would be due to my proposal. It has already happened, and it is still happening. People already depend on the invalid code we are talking about. It exists in various programs today. People may also be writing more such code even today. With GCC 2.95, such code will always work as expected if -O0 is used, and that may even be true if -O1 is used. In GCC 2.95, when -fstrict-aliasing is used, some of these cases work as expected, and some will not. With my proposal, that would still be the overall situation. The only difference would be that a larger fraction of them would work as expected. This difference would reduce the pain caused today, but as regards the potential problems you are worried about, it would not change things much.