Help stabilising mini-gmp

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2016-12-01 18:15:54 -0700, Nelson H. F. Beebe wrote:
> Vincent clarifies about my response on about zero shift counts:
> 
> >> ...
> >> I'm not talking about a zero shift count, but a shift of the value 0
> >> with an arbitrary shift count, e.g. (uint64_t) 0 << 64. This is
> >> undefined behavior, but I wonder why. When mapped to a hardware
> >> instruction, does the result depend on the platform?
> >> ...
> 
> It isn't the issue of a zero value being shifted, but rather, the
> range of allowable shift values.

Yes, but *why* also for zero?

> The ISO 1999 C Standard's relevent restriction is:
> 
> >> ...
> >> If the value of the right operand is negative or is greater than or
>                                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> equal to the width of the promoted left operand, the behavior is
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> undefined.
> >> ...
> 
> That is, with an n-bit word, shift counts from 0 to n - 1 are legal,
> but negative shift counts, and counts of n or larger, are undefined
> behavior.
> 
> The reason is that hardware implementations do different things:

I agree for nonzero values, but I repeat: What about 0?

With your examples, 0 shifted by an arbitrary shift count always
gives 0. So, I don't see any valid reason why the C standard chose
to make this undefined behavior in the particular case of 0. This
makes code like:

  n = number of leading 0's of u;
  v = u << n;

undefined for u = 0.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent at vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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