<table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="8">
<tr>
<th>Issue</th>
<td>
<a href=https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/issues/120353>120353</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Summary</th>
<td>
Inefficient Stack Usage in Creating and Passing Large Struct Argument
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Labels</th>
<td>
new issue
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Assignees</th>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Reporter</th>
<td>
jonathan-gruber-jg
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<pre>
When creating a large struct and passing it as an argument, Clang stores the struct on the stack twice. By a "large" struct, I mean one that is too large to be passed as an argument in the argument registers and must instead be passed on the stack.
A minimal test case is in the attached file test.c.txt (GitHub would not allow me to upload it with the .c extension, sadly), reproduced below for your convenience:
```
struct S {
void *x, *y, *z, *w;
};
extern int extern_func(struct S);
int tail_call(void *x, void *y, void *z, void *w) {
struct S a = { x, y, z, w };
return extern_func(a);
}
int non_tail_call(void *x, void *y, void *z, void *w) {
struct S a = { x, y, z, w };
return ~extern_func(a);
}
```
I tested the target architecture x86_64 but am unsure if any other target architectures have this inefficiency.
Host system: Arch Linux, x86_64.
Clang version: official Arch Linux package of clang, version 18.1.8-4.
Command line to reproduce results: clang -c test.c --target=\<arch\> -O\<opt-level\>
x86_64 assembly (Intel syntax), with -Oz, -Os, -O2, or -O3
```
tail_call:
push rbp
mov rbp,rsp
sub rsp,0x40
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x20],rdi
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x18],rsi
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x10],rdx
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x8],rcx
movups xmm0,XMMWORD PTR [rbp-0x20]
movups xmm1,XMMWORD PTR [rbp-0x10]
movups XMMWORD PTR [rsp+0x10],xmm1
movups XMMWORD PTR [rsp],xmm0
call extern_func
add rsp,0x40
pop rbp
ret
non_tail_call:
push rbp
mov rbp,rsp
sub rsp,0x40
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x20],rdi
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x18],rsi
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x10],rdx
mov QWORD PTR [rbp-0x8],rcx
movups xmm0,XMMWORD PTR [rbp-0x20]
movups xmm1,XMMWORD PTR [rbp-0x10]
movups XMMWORD PTR [rsp+0x10],xmm1
movups XMMWORD PTR [rsp],xmm0
call extern_func
not eax
add rsp,0x40
pop rbp
ret
```
[test.c.txt](https://github.com/user-attachments/files/18174500/test.c.txt)
</pre>
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