[llvm-dev] [RFC] FP Contract = fast?

[Hal Finkel via llvm-dev]

On 03/15/2017 12:01 PM, Stephen Canon wrote:
> On Mar 15, 2017, at 12:52 PM, Hal Finkel <hfinkel at anl.gov 
> <mailto:hfinkel at anl.gov>> wrote:
>>
>> On 03/15/2017 11:39 AM, Stephen Canon wrote:
>>
>>> We should default to pragma STDC FP_CONTRACT ON, not ‘fast’.
>>>
>>> ‘on’ is the most aggressive mode that conforms to C11. ‘fast’ should 
>>> be opt-in (like ‘fast-math’ is).
>>
>> Why? Other compilers default to 'fast', and 'on' does not play well 
>> with C++ code (where inlining is really important, and so the 
>> statement boundaries that restrict contraction encourage bad coding 
>> style).
>
> I’m fine with defaulting to fast in C++ (it’s allowed by the C++ 
> arithmetic model IIRC).
>
> Personally, I think the bar for not defaulting to the 
> standards-conforming mode should be high. In particular, ‘fast’ 
> doesn’t respect the pragma control, so it is unsafe—if someone 
> copy-pastes code that uses the documented C semantics into a file 
> compiled with ‘fast' set, they will get incorrect behavior, even if 
> they use the pragmas.

Oh, good point. We can and should fix this now. All relevant IR 
instructions now support fast-math flags (arithmetic, function calls, 
etc.). We should have a flag to allow contractions and use it. This will 
allow the pragmas to work correctly.

>
> “Other compilers are doing it” is not convincing, at all, especially 
> where hard-to-analyze floating-point rounding behavior is concerned. 
> GCC defaulted to preserving extra precision on x87 for decades, and 
> that wasn’t a good idea either. We can do better.

In general, I agree. I think, however, that in this case the other 
compilers are right. The statement-limited model is something that, in 
my experience, users find surprising and unhelpful. Nevertheless, I'm 
fine with having different defaults here for C and C++ (although 
somewhat sad) is we want to draw the line at having a confirming 
implementation by default.

  -Hal

>
> – Steve

-- 
Hal Finkel
Lead, Compiler Technology and Programming Languages
Leadership Computing Facility
Argonne National Laboratory

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