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GCC Bugs
The latest version of this document is always available at
[1]http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html.
_________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
* [2]Reporting Bugs
+ [3]What we need
+ [4]What we DON'T want
+ [5]Where to post it
+ [6]Detailed bug reporting instructions
+ [7]Detailed bug reporting instructions for GNAT
+ [8]Detailed bug reporting instructions when using a precompiled
header
* [9]Frequently Reported Bugs in GCC
+ [10]C++
o [11]Missing features
o [12]Bugs fixed in the 3.4 series
+ [13]Fortran
* [14]Non-bugs
+ [15]General
+ [16]C
+ [17]C++
o [18]Common problems when upgrading the compiler
_________________________________________________________________
Reporting Bugs
The main purpose of a bug report is to enable us to fix the bug. The most
important prerequisite for this is that the report must be complete and
self-contained.
Before you report a bug, please check the [19]list of well-known bugs and,
if possible, try a current development snapshot. If you want to report a bug
with versions of GCC before 3.4 we strongly recommend upgrading to the
current release first.
Before reporting that GCC compiles your code incorrectly, please compile it
with gcc -Wall and see whether this shows anything wrong with your code that
could be the cause instead of a bug in GCC.
Summarized bug reporting instructions
After this summary, you'll find detailed bug reporting instructions, that
explain how to obtain some of the information requested in this summary.
What we need
Please include in your bug report all of the following items, the first
three of which can be obtained from the output of gcc -v:
* the exact version of GCC;
* the system type;
* the options given when GCC was configured/built;
* the complete command line that triggers the bug;
* the compiler output (error messages, warnings, etc.); and
* the preprocessed file (*.i*) that triggers the bug, generated by adding
-save-temps to the complete compilation command, or, in the case of a
bug report for the GNAT front end, a complete set of source files (see
below).
What we do not want
* A source file that #includes header files that are left out of the bug
report (see above)
* That source file and a collection of header files.
* An attached archive (tar, zip, shar, whatever) containing all (or some
:-) of the above.
* A code snippet that won't cause the compiler to produce the exact output
mentioned in the bug report (e.g., a snippet with just a few lines
around the one that apparently triggers the bug, with some pieces
replaced with ellipses or comments for extra obfuscation :-)
* The location (URL) of the package that failed to build (we won't
download it, anyway, since you've already given us what we need to
duplicate the bug, haven't you? :-)
* An error that occurs only some of the times a certain file is compiled,
such that retrying a sufficient number of times results in a successful
compilation; this is a symptom of a hardware problem, not of a compiler
bug (sorry)
* Assembly files (*.s) produced by the compiler, or any binary files, such
as object files, executables, core files, or precompiled header files
* Duplicate bug reports, or reports of bugs already fixed in the
development tree, especially those that have already been reported as
fixed last week :-)
* Bugs in the assembler, the linker or the C library. These are separate
projects, with separate mailing lists and different bug reporting
procedures
* Bugs in releases or snapshots of GCC not issued by the GNU Project.
Report them to whoever provided you with the release
* Questions about the correctness or the expected behavior of certain
constructs that are not GCC extensions. Ask them in forums dedicated to
the discussion of the programming language
Where to post it
Please submit your bug report directly to the [20]GCC bug database.
Alternatively, you can use the gccbug script that mails your bug report to
the bug database.
Only if all this is absolutely impossible, mail all information to
[21]gcc-bugs@gcc.gnu.org.
Detailed bug reporting instructions
Please refer to the [22]next section when reporting bugs in GNAT, the Ada
compiler, or to the [23]one after that when reporting bugs that appear when
using a precompiled header.
In general, all the information we need can be obtained by collecting the
command line below, as well as its output and the preprocessed file it
generates.
gcc -v -save-temps all-your-options source-file
The only excuses to not send us the preprocessed sources are (i) if you've
found a bug in the preprocessor, (ii) if you've reduced the testcase to a
small file that doesn't include any other file or (iii) if the bug appears
only when using precompiled headers. If you can't post the preprocessed
sources because they're proprietary code, then try to create a small file
that triggers the same problem.
Since we're supposed to be able to re-create the assembly output (extension
.s), you usually should not include it in the bug report, although you may
want to post parts of it to point out assembly code you consider to be
wrong.
Please avoid posting an archive (.tar, .shar or .zip); we generally need
just a single file to reproduce the bug (the .i/.ii/.f preprocessed file),
and, by storing it in an archive, you're just making our volunteers' jobs
harder. Only when your bug report requires multiple source files to be
reproduced should you use an archive. This is, for example, the case if you
are using INCLUDE directives in Fortran code, which are not processed by the
preprocessor, but the compiler. In that case, we need the main file and all
INCLUDEd files. In any case, make sure the compiler version, error message,
etc, are included in the body of your bug report as plain text, even if
needlessly duplicated as part of an archive.
Detailed bug reporting instructions for GNAT
See the [24]previous section for bug reporting instructions for GCC language
implementations other than Ada.
Bug reports have to contain at least the following information in order to
be useful:
* the exact version of GCC, as shown by "gcc -v";
* the system type;
* the options when GCC was configured/built;
* the exact command line passed to the gcc program triggering the bug (not
just the flags passed to gnatmake, but gnatmake prints the parameters it
passed to gcc)
* a collection of source files for reproducing the bug, preferably a
minimal set (see below);
* a description of the expected behavior;
* a description of actual behavior.
If your code depends on additional source files (usually package
specifications), submit the source code for these compilation units in a
single file that is acceptable input to gnatchop, i.e. contains no non-Ada
text. If the compilation terminated normally, you can usually obtain a list
of dependencies using the "gnatls -d main_unit" command, where main_unit is
the file name of the main compilation unit (which is also passed to gcc).
If you report a bug which causes the compiler to print a bug box, include
that bug box in your report, and do not forget to send all the source files
listed after the bug box along with your report.
If you use gnatprep, be sure to send in preprocessed sources (unless you
have to report a bug in gnatprep).
When you have checked that your report meets these criteria, please submit
it according to our [25]generic instructions. (If you use a mailing list for
reporting, please include an "[Ada]" tag in the subject.)
Detailed bug reporting instructions when using a precompiled header
If you're encountering a bug when using a precompiled header, the first
thing to do is to delete the precompiled header, and try running the same
GCC command again. If the bug happens again, the bug doesn't really involve
precompiled headers, please report it without using them by following the
instructions [26]above.
If you've found a bug while building a precompiled header (for instance, the
compiler crashes), follow the usual instructions [27]above.
If you've found a real precompiled header bug, what we'll need to reproduce
it is the sources to build the precompiled header (as a single .i file), the
source file that uses the precompiled header, any other headers that source
file includes, and the command lines that you used to build the precompiled
header and to use it.
Please don't send us the actual precompiled header. It is likely to be very
large and we can't use it to reproduce the problem.
_________________________________________________________________
Frequently Reported Bugs in GCC
This is a list of bugs in GCC that are reported very often, but not yet
fixed. While it is certainly better to fix bugs instead of documenting them,
this document might save people the effort of writing a bug report when the
bug is already well-known.
There are many reasons why a reported bug doesn't get fixed. It might be
difficult to fix, or fixing it might break compatibility. Often, reports get
a low priority when there is a simple work-around. In particular, bugs
caused by invalid code have a simple work-around: fix the code.
_________________________________________________________________
C++
Missing features
The export keyword is not implemented.
Most C++ compilers (G++ included) do not yet implement export, which
is necessary for separate compilation of template declarations and
definitions. Without export, a template definition must be in scope
to be used. The obvious workaround is simply to place all definitions
in the header itself. Alternatively, the compilation unit containing
template definitions may be included from the header.
Bugs fixed in the 3.4 series
The following bugs are present up to (and including) GCC 3.3.x. They have
been fixed in 3.4.0.
Two-stage name-lookup.
GCC did not implement two-stage name-lookup (also see [28]below).
Covariant return types.
GCC did not implement non-trivial covariant returns.
Parse errors for "simple" code.
GCC gave parse errors for seemingly simple code, such as
struct A
{
A();
A(int);
};
struct B
{
B(A);
B(A,A);
void foo();
};
A bar()
{
B b(A(),A(1)); // Variable b, initialized with two temporaries
B(A(2)).foo(); // B temporary, initialized with A temporary
return (A()); // return A temporary
}
Although being valid code, each of the three lines with a comment was
rejected by GCC. The work-arounds for older compiler versions
proposed below do not change the semantics of the programs at all.
The problem in the first case was that GCC started to parse the
declaration of b as a function called b returning B, taking a
function returning A as an argument. When it encountered the 1, it
was too late. To show the compiler that this should be really an
expression, a comma operator with a dummy argument could be used:
B b((0,A()),A(1));
The work-around for simpler cases like the second one was to add
additional parentheses around the expressions that were mistaken as
declarations:
(B(A(2))).foo();
In the third case, however, additional parentheses were causing the
problems: The compiler interpreted A() as a function (taking no
arguments, returning A), and (A()) as a cast lacking an expression to
be casted, hence the parse error. The work-around was to omit the
parentheses:
return A();
This problem occurred in a number of variants; in throw statements,
people also frequently put the object in parentheses.
_________________________________________________________________
Fortran
G77 bugs are documented in the G77 manual rather than explicitly listed
here. Please see [29]Known Causes of Trouble with GNU Fortran in the G77
manual.
_________________________________________________________________
Non-bugs
The following are not actually bugs, but are reported often enough to
warrant a mention here.
It is not always a bug in the compiler, if code which "worked" in a previous
version, is now rejected. Earlier versions of GCC sometimes were less picky
about standard conformance and accepted invalid source code. In addition,
programming languages themselves change, rendering code invalid that used to
be conforming (this holds especially for C++). In either case, you should
update your code to match recent language standards.
_________________________________________________________________
General
Problems with floating point numbers - the [30]most often reported non-bug.
In a number of cases, GCC appears to perform floating point
computations incorrectly. For example, the C++ program
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
double a = 0.5;
double b = 0.01;
std::cout << (int)(a / b) << std::endl;
return 0;
}
might print 50 on some systems and optimization levels, and 49 on
others.
This is the result of rounding: The computer cannot represent all
real numbers exactly, so it has to use approximations. When computing
with approximation, the computer needs to round to the nearest
representable number.
This is not a bug in the compiler, but an inherent limitation of the
floating point types. Please study [31]this paper for more
information.
_________________________________________________________________
C
Increment/decrement operator (++/--) not working as expected - a [32]problem
with many variations.
The following expressions have unpredictable results:
x[i]=++i
foo(i,++i)
i*(++i) /* special case with foo=="operator*" */
std::cout << i << ++i /* foo(foo(std::cout,i),++i) */
since the i without increment can be evaluated before or after ++i.
The C and C++ standards have the notion of "sequence points".
Everything that happens between two sequence points happens in an
unspecified order, but it has to happen after the first and before
the second sequence point. The end of a statement and a function call
are examples for sequence points, whereas assignments and the comma
between function arguments are not.
Modifying a value twice between two sequence points as shown in the
following examples is even worse:
i=++i
foo(++i,++i)
(++i)*(++i) /* special case with foo=="operator*" */
std::cout << ++i << ++i /* foo(foo(std::cout,++i),++i) */
This leads to undefined behavior (i.e. the compiler can do anything).
Casting does not work as expected when optimization is turned on.
This is often caused by a violation of aliasing rules, which are part
of the ISO C standard. These rules say that a program is invalid if
you try to access a variable through a pointer of an incompatible
type. This is happening in the following example where a short is
accessed through a pointer to integer (the code assumes 16-bit shorts
and 32-bit ints):
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
short a[2];
a[0]=0x1111;
a[1]=0x1111;
*(int *)a = 0x22222222; /* violation of aliasing rules */
printf("%x %x\n", a[0], a[1]);
return 0;
}
The aliasing rules were designed to allow compilers more aggressive
optimization. Basically, a compiler can assume that all changes to
variables happen through pointers or references to variables of a
type compatible to the accessed variable. Dereferencing a pointer
that violates the aliasing rules results in undefined behavior.
In the case above, the compiler may assume that no access through an
integer pointer can change the array a, consisting of shorts. Thus,
printf may be called with the original values of a[0] and a[1]. What
really happens is up to the compiler and may change with architecture
and optimization level.
Recent versions of GCC turn on the option -fstrict-aliasing (which
allows alias-based optimizations) by default with -O2. And some
architectures then really print "1111 1111" as result. Without
optimization the executable will generate the "expected" output "2222
2222".
To disable optimizations based on alias-analysis for faulty legacy
code, the option -fno-strict-aliasing can be used as a work-around.
The option -Wstrict-aliasing (which is included in -Wall) warns about
some - but not all - cases of violation of aliasing rules when
-fstrict-aliasing is active.
To fix the code above, you can use a union instead of a cast (note
that this is a GCC extension which might not work with other
compilers):
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
union
{
short a[2];
int i;
} u;
u.a[0]=0x1111;
u.a[1]=0x1111;
u.i = 0x22222222;
printf("%x %x\n", u.a[0], u.a[1]);
return 0;
}
Now the result will always be "2222 2222".
For some more insight into the subject, please have a look at
[33]this article.
Cannot use preprocessor directive in macro arguments.
Let me guess... you used an older version of GCC to compile code that
looks something like this:
memcpy(dest, src,
#ifdef PLATFORM1
12
#else
24
#endif
);
and you got a whole pile of error messages:
test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg
test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg
test.c:11: warning: preprocessing directive not recognized within macro arg
test.c: In function `foo':
test.c:6: undefined or invalid # directive
test.c:8: undefined or invalid # directive
test.c:9: parse error before `24'
test.c:10: undefined or invalid # directive
This is because your C library's <string.h> happens to define memcpy
as a macro - which is perfectly legitimate. In recent versions of
glibc, for example, printf is among those functions which are
implemented as macros.
Versions of GCC prior to 3.3 did not allow you to put #ifdef (or any
other preprocessor directive) inside the arguments of a macro. The
code therefore would not compile.
As of GCC 3.3 this kind of construct is always accepted and the
preprocessor will probably do what you expect, but see the manual for
detailed semantics.
However, this kind of code is not portable. It is "undefined
behavior" according to the C standard; that means different compilers
may do different things with it. It is always possible to rewrite
code which uses conditionals inside macros so that it doesn't. You
could write the above example
#ifdef PLATFORM1
memcpy(dest, src, 12);
#else
memcpy(dest, src, 24);
#endif
This is a bit more typing, but I personally think it's better style
in addition to being more portable.
Cannot initialize a static variable with stdin.
This has nothing to do with GCC, but people ask us about it a lot.
Code like this:
#include <stdio.h>
FILE *yyin = stdin;
will not compile with GNU libc, because stdin is not a constant. This
was done deliberately, to make it easier to maintain binary
compatibility when the type FILE needs to be changed. It is
surprising for people used to traditional Unix C libraries, but it is
permitted by the C standard.
This construct commonly occurs in code generated by old versions of
lex or yacc. We suggest you try regenerating the parser with a
current version of flex or bison, respectively. In your own code, the
appropriate fix is to move the initialization to the beginning of
main.
There is a common misconception that the GCC developers are
responsible for GNU libc. These are in fact two entirely separate
projects; please check the [34]GNU libc web pages for details.
_________________________________________________________________
C++
Nested classes can access private members and types of the containing class.
Defect report 45 clarifies that nested classes are members of the
class they are nested in, and so are granted access to private
members of that class.
G++ emits two copies of constructors and destructors.
In general there are three types of constructors (and destructors).
1. The complete object constructor/destructor.
2. The base object constructor/destructor.
3. The allocating constructor/deallocating destructor.
The first two are different, when virtual base classes are involved.
Global destructors are not run in the correct order.
Global destructors should be run in the reverse order of their
constructors completing. In most cases this is the same as the
reverse order of constructors starting, but sometimes it is
different, and that is important. You need to compile and link your
programs with --use-cxa-atexit. We have not turned this switch on by
default, as it requires a cxa aware runtime library (libc, glibc, or
equivalent).
Classes in exception specifiers must be complete types.
[15.4]/1 tells you that you cannot have an incomplete type, or
pointer to incomplete (other than cv void *) in an exception
specification.
Exceptions don't work in multithreaded applications.
You need to rebuild g++ and libstdc++ with --enable-threads.
Remember, C++ exceptions are not like hardware interrupts. You cannot
throw an exception in one thread and catch it in another. You cannot
throw an exception from a signal handler and catch it in the main
thread.
Templates, scoping, and digraphs.
If you have a class in the global namespace, say named X, and want to
give it as a template argument to some other class, say std::vector,
then std::vector<::X> fails with a parser error.
The reason is that the standard mandates that the sequence <: is
treated as if it were the token [. (There are several such
combinations of characters - they are called digraphs.) Depending on
the version, the compiler then reports a parse error before the
character : (the colon before X) or a missing closing bracket ].
The simplest way to avoid this is to write std::vector< ::X>, i.e.
place a space between the opening angle bracket and the scope
operator.
Copy constructor access check while initializing a reference.
Consider this code:
class A
{
public:
A();
private:
A(const A&); // private copy ctor
};
A makeA(void);
void foo(const A&);
void bar(void)
{
foo(A()); // error, copy ctor is not accessible
foo(makeA()); // error, copy ctor is not accessible
A a1;
foo(a1); // OK, a1 is a lvalue
}
Starting with GCC 3.4.0, binding an rvalue to a const reference
requires an accessible copy constructor. This might be surprising at
first sight, especially since most popular compilers do not correctly
implement this rule.
The C++ Standard says that a temporary object should be created in
this context and its contents filled with a copy of the object we are
trying to bind to the reference; it also says that the temporary copy
can be elided, but the semantic constraints (eg. accessibility) of
the copy constructor still have to be checked.
For further information, you can consult the following paragraphs of
the C++ standard: [dcl.init.ref]/5, bullet 2, sub-bullet 1, and
[class.temporary]/2.
Common problems when upgrading the compiler
ABI changes
The C++ application binary interface (ABI) consists of two components: the
first defines how the elements of classes are laid out, how functions are
called, how function names are mangled, etc; the second part deals with the
internals of the objects in libstdc++. Although we strive for a non-changing
ABI, so far we have had to modify it with each major release. If you change
your compiler to a different major release you must recompile all libraries
that contain C++ code. If you fail to do so you risk getting linker errors
or malfunctioning programs. Some of our Java support libraries also contain
C++ code, so you might want to recompile all libraries to be safe. It should
not be necessary to recompile if you have changed to a bug-fix release of
the same version of the compiler; bug-fix releases are careful to avoid ABI
changes. See also the [35]compatibility section of the GCC manual.
Remark: A major release is designated by a change to the first or second
component of the two- or three-part version number. A minor (bug-fix)
release is designated by a change to the third component only. Thus GCC 3.2
and 3.3 are major releases, while 3.3.1 and 3.3.2 are bug-fix releases for
GCC 3.3. With the 3.4 series we are introducing a new naming scheme; the
first release of this series is 3.4.0 instead of just 3.4.
Standard conformance
With each release, we try to make G++ conform closer to the ISO C++ standard
(available at [36]http://www.ncits.org/cplusplus.htm). We have also
implemented some of the core and library defect reports (available at
[37]http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/cwg_defects.html &
[38]http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/lwg-defects.html
respectively).
Non-conforming legacy code that worked with older versions of GCC may be
rejected by more recent compilers. There is no command-line switch to ensure
compatibility in general, because trying to parse standard-conforming and
old-style code at the same time would render the C++ frontend
unmaintainable. However, some non-conforming constructs are allowed when the
command-line option -fpermissive is used.
Two milestones in standard conformance are GCC 3.0 (including a major
overhaul of the standard library) and the 3.4.0 version (with its new C++
parser).
New in GCC 3.0
* The standard library is much more conformant, and uses the std::
namespace (which is now a real namespace, not an alias for ::).
* The standard header files for the c library don't end with .h, but begin
with c (i.e. <cstdlib> rather than <stdlib.h>). The .h names are still
available, but are deprecated.
* <strstream> is deprecated, use <sstream> instead.
* streambuf::seekoff & streambuf::seekpos are private, instead use
streambuf::pubseekoff & streambuf::pubseekpos respectively.
* If std::operator << (std::ostream &, long long) doesn't exist, you need
to recompile libstdc++ with --enable-long-long.
If you get lots of errors about things like cout not being found, you've
most likely forgotten to tell the compiler to look in the std:: namespace.
There are several ways to do this:
* Say std::cout at the call. This is the most explicit way of saying what
you mean.
* Say using std::cout; somewhere before the call. You will need to do this
for each function or type you wish to use from the standard library.
* Say using namespace std; somewhere before the call. This is the
quick-but-dirty fix. This brings the whole of the std:: namespace into
scope. Never do this in a header file, as every user of your header file
will be affected by this decision.
New in GCC 3.4.0
The new parser brings a lot of improvements, especially concerning
name-lookup.
* The "implicit typename" extension got removed (it was already deprecated
since GCC 3.1), so that the following code is now rejected, see [14.6]:
template <typename> struct A
{
typedef int X;
};
template <typename T> struct B
{
A<T>::X x; // error
typename A<T>::X y; // OK
};
B<void> b;
* For similar reasons, the following code now requires the template
keyword, see [14.2]:
template <typename> struct A
{
template <int> struct X {};
};
template <typename T> struct B
{
typename A<T>::X<0> x; // error
typename A<T>::template X<0> y; // OK
};
B<void> b;
* We now have two-stage name-lookup, so that the following code is
rejected, see [14.6]/9:
template <typename T> int foo()
{
return i; // error
}
* This also affects members of base classes, see [14.6.2]:
template <typename> struct A
{
int i, j;
};
template <typename T> struct B : A<T>
{
int foo1() { return i; } // error
int foo2() { return this->i; } // OK
int foo3() { return B<T>::i; } // OK
int foo4() { return A<T>::i; } // OK
using A<T>::j;
int foo5() { return j; } // OK
};
In addition to the problems listed above, the manual contains a section on
[39]Common Misunderstandings with GNU C++.
References
1. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html
2. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#report
3. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#need
4. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#dontwant
5. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#where
6. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#detailed
7. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#gnat
8. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#pch
9. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#known
10. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#cxx
11. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#missing
12. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#fixed34
13. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#fortran
14. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#nonbugs
15. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#nonbugs_general
16. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#nonbugs_c
17. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#nonbugs_cxx
18. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#upgrading
19. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#known
20. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/
21. mailto:gcc-bugs@gcc.gnu.org
22. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#gnat
23. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#pch
24. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#detailed
25. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#where
26. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#detailed
27. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#detailed
28. http://gcc.gnu.org/bugs.html#new34
29. http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-3.4.6/g77/Trouble.html
30. http://gcc.gnu.org/PR323
31. http://www.validlab.com/goldberg/paper.ps
32. http://gcc.gnu.org/PR11751
33. http://mail-index.NetBSD.org/tech-kern/2003/08/11/0001.html
34. http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/
35. http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Compatibility.html
36. http://www.ncits.org/cplusplus.htm
37. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/cwg_defects.html
38. http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/lwg-defects.html
39. http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/C_002b_002b-Misunderstandings.html