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Re: [avr-libc-dev] [ Bug #1720 ] memcmp bug ?


From: Marek Michalkiewicz
Subject: Re: [avr-libc-dev] [ Bug #1720 ] memcmp bug ?
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 22:34:38 +0100 (CET)

> Regarding:
> 
>   http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?func=detailbug&bug_id=1720&group_id=2140
> 
> Is this really a bug?

Both the glibc manual and SUSv2 say that the values compared are
interpreted as unsigned char, then the difference promoted to int.
So I don't think this is a bug.

> I'm leaning toward leaving the behaviour as is, but adding a note in the
> dox explaining the signed nature of the compare operation.

It's unsigned, actually :)

Note that for the example in the bug report:

*s1={0xFF,0xFF,0xFF,0xFF,0xFF,0xFF}; 
*s2={0xFF,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x00}; 

the result is 0x00FF (carry is cleared, so the high byte is 0) and
this is correct (positive, because s1[1] > s2[2] when compared as
unsigned char).

> If the change should be made, I think it would be the following patch
> (don't sign extend the result). Is this patch correct?

I don't think so.  The sign (from subtracting two "unsigned char"
values) is in the carry flag, and _that_ is extended to bits 8-15.

Yes, the result is wrong with -mint8, but fixing that is not so
simple.  I guess something like this would work (not tested):

; ...
        brcc .memcmp_loop
; strings are equal
        clr ret_lo              ; needed for the n==0 case
                                ; return 0x0000
.memcmp_non_neg:
        clr ret_hi
        ret
.memcmp_done:
        ldi ret_lo,1
        brcc .memcmp_non_neg    ; return 0x0001
        ldi ret_lo,0xff
        ldi ret_hi,0xff
        ret                     ; return 0xFFFF

This way the result is correct as both 8-bit and 16-bit value.
Similar changes would be needed for strcmp() and a few others.
But, this is 5 more instructions than the current version, so
the question how important is to support -mint8 remains...

Marek





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