https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=96392
Bug ID: 96392 Summary: Optimize x+0.0 if x is an integer Product: gcc Version: 10.1.1 Status: UNCONFIRMED Severity: normal Priority: P3 Component: tree-optimization Assignee: unassigned at gcc dot gnu.org Reporter: hugo_musso_gualandi at hotmail dot com Target Milestone: --- One way to convert an integer to a floating point number in C is to multiply it by 1.0. In this case, gcc is clever enough to optimize away the multiplication. Another way is to add 0.0. However, in this case, GCC does not optimize away the addition. Example C code: double times1(int x) { return x * 1.0; } double plus0(int x) { return x + 0.0; } Output of objdump -d after compiling with gcc -O2 -c: 0000000000000000 <times1>: 0: 66 0f ef c0 pxor %xmm0,%xmm0 4: f2 0f 2a c7 cvtsi2sd %edi,%xmm0 8: c3 retq 9: 0f 1f 80 00 00 00 00 nopl 0x0(%rax) 0000000000000010 <plus0>: 10: 66 0f ef c0 pxor %xmm0,%xmm0 14: f2 0f 2a c7 cvtsi2sd %edi,%xmm0 18: f2 0f 58 05 00 00 00 addsd 0x0(%rip),%xmm0 1f: 00 20: c3 retq I believe that the reason that GCC does not optimize x+0.0 is that it is worried that x could be negative zero. However, promoting an integer to floating point can never yield negative zero so it should be possible to optimize in this particular case. (For the matter, Clang does optimize it.)