assembly in future C standard HCF Gerry Wheeler

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1.assembly in future C standard

Peter Nilsson < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote:

(Crossposted to comp.std.c, with followups directed there, hopefully
 appropriately.  The original post discussed the possibility of whether
 __asm or something similar to it would be added to the C standard.)

> Contrary to Richard Heathfield's categorical statement, it is not an
> absolute given that there will never be an asm keyword in C. But it
> is unlikely because it's already clear that the asm keyword in C++ has
> not served to truly standardise the syntax of inline assembly.

One idea that was not mentioned in the original thread (I imagine for
good reason, because it's a half-baked and probably stupid idea that
occurred to me reading your post) would be to allow for some kind of
conditional assembly, just perhaps something like

#pragma assemble
#pragma X86 /* Inner pragma's implementation-defined */
  /* Inline assembly, which the implementation can ignore or not */
#pragma no-assemble
  /* Stock C code for implementations that can't or won't accept the
   * assemble pragma: */
  for( i=1; i < 10; i++ ) {
    foo();
    /* ... */
  }
#pragma end-assemble

The end result would be something like "If the implementation attempts
to inline the assembly code contained within a #pragma assemble
directive, the behavior is implementation-defined.  Otherwise the
assembly code shall be ignored and the C code contained within any
corresponding #pragma no-assemble directive shall be compiled as
though no directives were present."  It would require adding some
duties to the #pragma directive, but it would allow implementors to
take a reasonable shot at using targetted assembly instructions when
appropriate and available, and reverting to ordinary C otherwise.

I'm sure there are reasons why this is stupid and/or impossible, or it
would have been done already :-)

> At the end of the day, the committee could probably spend many man
> weeks deciding issues on an __asm keyword, but for what? Most
> implementations will keep their existing syntax, and most programmers
> who use inline assembly will no doubt continue to prefer the localised
> syntax because it's less cumbersome than any standard syntax.

Indeed, but it's an interesting thought experiment to consider how the
committee *might* add assembly to C if they chose to do so.  (Well,
interesting to me, at least.)

-- 
C. Benson Manica           | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
cbmanica(at)gmail.com      | don't, I need to know.  Flames welcome.