[Vlad, if you have a few minutes, would you mind having a look at the couple of questions at the end of the message? Thanks in advance].
> No problem. Here are the results of the investigation. Pseudo 116 needs to be assigned a hard register. It is used mostly in vector instructions so we would like it to be assigned a FP reg, but it is initialized in insn 2: (insn 2 5 3 2 (set (reg/v:V4HI 116 [ a ]) (reg:V4HI 24 %i0 [ a ])) combined-1.c:7 93 {*movdf_insn_sp32_v9} (expr_list:REG_DEAD (reg:V4HI 24 %i0 [ a ]) (nil))) so it ends up being assigned the (integer) argument register %i0 instead. It used to be assigned a FP reg as expected with the GCC 4.6.x series. The register class preference discovery is OK: r116: preferred EXTRA_FP_REGS, alternative GENERAL_OR_EXTRA_FP_REGS, allocno GENERAL_OR_EXTRA_FP_REGS a2 (r116,l0) best EXTRA_FP_REGS, allocno GENERAL_OR_EXTRA_FP_REGS i.e. EXTRA_FP_REGS is "preferred"/"best". Then it seems that this preference is dropped and only the class of the allocno, GENERAL_OR_EXTRA_FP_REGS, is handed down to the coloring stage. By contrast, in the GCC 4.6 series, the cover_class of the allocno is EXTRA_FP_REGS. The initial cost for %i0 is twice as high (24000) as the cost of FP regs. But then it is reduced by 12000 when process_bb_node_for_hard_reg_moves sees insn 2 above and then again by 12000 when process_regs_for_copy sees the same insn. So, in the end, %i0 is given cost 0 and thus beats every other register. This doesn't happen in the GCC 4.6 series because %i0 isn't in the cover_class. This is at -O1. At -O2, there is an extra pass at the discovery stage and it sets the class of the allocno to EXTRA_FP_REGS, like with the GCC 4.6 series, so a simple workaround is Index: gcc.target/sparc/combined-1.c =================================================================== --- gcc.target/sparc/combined-1.c (revision 179316) +++ gcc.target/sparc/combined-1.c (working copy) @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@ /* { dg-do compile } */ -/* { dg-options "-O -mcpu=ultrasparc -mvis" } */ +/* { dg-options "-O2 -mcpu=ultrasparc -mvis" } */ typedef short vec16 __attribute__((vector_size(8))); typedef int vec32 __attribute__((vector_size(8))); Finally the couple of questions: 1. Is it expected that the register class preference be dropped at -O1? 2. Is it expected that a single insn be processed by 2 different mechanisms that independently halve the initial cost of a hard register? -- Eric Botcazou