GCC quality (was Re: AMD-64 optimizations, some (new) code)

[Torbjorn Granlund]

Alexander Kruppa <alexander.kruppa at mytum.de> writes:

  Torbjorn Granlund wrote:
  
  > I think you'll find that gcc 4.0.1 is a lot worse than 3.3.3.  It
  > might be safer to upgrade to 3.3.6 (or whatever is the latest 3.3
  > release).
  
  Torbjörn, what is your opinion on the 3.4.x version of gcc? Is it safe 
  to use?
  
I have had more problems with 3.4.x than with 3.3.x.  But with
the track record of gcc, it is not safe to use any gcc release.
You need to have a good test suite for anything compiled with
gcc.  The gcc release that have caused me most problem is 4.0.0.
It seems 4.0.1 is better, but I haven't been bothered to try it
much.

The gmp testsuite has great coverage.  That is part of the reason
why gmp trips so often on gcc bugs.  Another part is that few
other programs expect fully correct integer arithmetic behaviour.

-- 
Torbjörn