https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=69196
--- Comment #29 from Sebastian Huber <sebastian.hu...@embedded-brains.de> --- Just for reference some numbers for GCC 7.4.0 and GCC 9.0.0 20190104: sparc-rtems5-gcc --version sparc-rtems5-gcc (GCC) 7.4.0 20181206 (RTEMS 5, RSB ddba5372522da341fa20b2c75dfe966231cb6790, Newlib df6915f029ac9acd2b479ea898388cbd7dda4974) Copyright (C) 2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. sparc-rtems5-gcc -c -O2 -o vprintk.7.4.0.o vprintk.i sparc-rtems6-gcc --version sparc-rtems6-gcc (GCC) 9.0.0 20190104 (RTEMS 6, RSB cd4a4f61ea5bbd4236f7717a94cd5e67f8b3ad20, Newlib 34d9bb709390b14b4ed0b1ea2656bf6bf5a055c3) Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. sparc-rtems6-gcc -c -O2 -o vprintk.9.0.0.o vprintk.i size *.o text data bss dec hex filename 688 0 0 688 2b0 vprintk.4.9.4.o 1272 0 0 1272 4f8 vprintk.6.0.0.o 933 0 0 933 3a5 vprintk.7.4.0.o 825 0 0 825 339 vprintk.9.0.0.o It seems the code size is quite volatile for this test case.