Hi,

I've been looking at the gcc.c-torture tests, it seems some of them rely on undefined behaviour. For example, 920612-1.c looks like this:

  f(j)int j;{return++j>0;}
  main(){if(f((~0U)>>1))abort();exit(0);}

AIUI, this passes the largest possible positive integer to f(), which then increments it, causing signed overflow, the result of which is undefined. The test passes if signed overflow wraps.

930529-1.c is similar -- again the maximum positive integer is incremented.

20020508-2.c has the following code (abridged):

  #ifndef CHAR_BIT
  #define CHAR_BIT 8
  #endif

  #define ROR(a,b) (((a) >> (b)) | ((a) << ((sizeof (a) * CHAR_BIT) - (b))))

  #define INT_VALUE ((int)0x1234)

  #define SHIFT1 4

  int i = INT_VALUE;
  int shift1 = SHIFT1;

  if (ROR (i, shift1) != ROR (INT_VALUE, SHIFT1))
    abort ();

Similarly, the left-shifting in ROR causes signed integer overflow (I think) and so ROR relies on undefined behaviour. 20020508-3.c is similar.

My question is: what exactly is gcc.c-torture testing? It seems to be testing more than just C standard compliance, but also certain undefined-but-desired behaviours, such as wrap-on-signed-overflow (at least in some cases). Is that right? If so, other C compilers could be correct with respect to the C standard but not pass all the tests. I couldn't find any kind of README or description about the tests that covered this point, so I'd appreciate any explanations.

Thanks.

Nick

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