http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=46261
--- Comment #14 from Eric Weddington <eric.weddington at atmel dot com> 2011-06-27 21:49:18 UTC --- > > Two things to consider: > > . Regardless of whether someone votes to remove an option, a segfault > should always be analyzed. It's easy enough to otherwise just hide > an error that will only reappear later on. Except that this is a segfault on a compiler switch that is unmaintained, and there are little to no user complaints about it. I would say remove the offending item and then fix anything if needed. > . As long as the AVR backend has a substantial number of PRs open about > "missed optimization", related to [u]int8_t -> int promotions, the > -mint8 option should stay, There are PRs open regarding missed optimization in this category. I'm not sure what is required to meet "substantial". > as it appears to be useful in particular > to people using very small controllers (ATtiny13, also think about > the new ATtiny4/5/6/9 series). Non-applicability of this option to > avr-libc is not a serious issue for those targets anyway, so this > (counter-)argument doesn't count here. Actually it does. The attiny10 series (attiny10/4/5/9/20/40) is still what I would call "experimental", in that they are only in distros and not upstream, and you know as well as I do that there is a serious wrong-code bug with them anyway. So those users don't even count. As to the other small device users, those devices still use avr-libc and there has been opportunity for users to complain through various channels (gcc, avr-gcc-list, avr-libc-dev) that -mint8 doesn't work. While we have had some complaints in the past, there haven't been much recently. You and I have also been telling users that -mint8 doesn't work with avr-libc and that it is unmaintained. We all know that the ideal solution is to fix the avr backend regarding optimizing (removing) unnecessary promotion. We can start by biting the bullet and removing -mint8. Eric
