Type Punning, Undefined Behavior and Alignment, Oh My! Strict aliasing is explained.
What is strict aliasing? First we will describe what is aliasing and then we can learn what being strict about it means.
In C and C++, aliasing has to do with what expression types we are allowed to access stored values through. In both C and C++, the standard specifies which expression types are allowed to alias which types. The compiler and optimizer are allowed to assume we follow the aliasing rules strictly, hence the term strict aliasing rule. If we attempt to access a value using a type not allowed it is classified as undefined behavior (UB) [CPP-1]. Once we have undefined behavior, all bets are off. The results of our program are no longer reliable.
Unfortunately, with strict aliasing violations we will often obtain the results we expect, leaving the possibility that a future version of a compiler with a new optimization will break code we thought was valid. This is undesirable and it is a worthwhile goal to understand the strict aliasing rules and how to avoid violating them.
To understand more about why we care, we will discuss issues that come up when violating strict aliasing rules, type punning since common techniques used in type punning often violate strict aliasing rules and how to type pun correctly, along with some possible help from C++20 to make type punning simpler and less error prone. We will wrap up the discussion by going over some methods for catching strict aliasing violations.
Preliminary examples
Let’s look at some examples, then we can talk about exactly what the standard(s) say, examine some further examples and then see how to avoid strict aliasing and catch violations we missed. Here is an example that should not be surprising:
int x = 10; int *ip = &x; std::cout << *ip << "\n"; *ip = 12; std::cout << x << "\n";
We have an int* pointing to memory occupied by an int and this is a valid aliasing. The optimizer must assume that assignments through ip could update the value occupied by x. Listing 1 shows aliasing that leads to undefined behavior.
int foo( float *f, int *i ) {
*i = 1;
*f = 0.f;
return *i;
}
int main() {
int x = 0;
std::cout << x << "\n"; // Expect 0
x = foo(reinterpret_cast<float*>(&x), &x);
std::cout << x << "\n"; // Expect 0?
}
|
| Listing 1 |
In the function foo we take an int* and a float*, in this example we call foo and set both parameters to point to the same memory location, which in this example contains an int. Note, the reinterpret_cast [CPP-2] is telling the compiler to treat the expression as if it had the type specified by its template parameter. In this case, we are telling it to treat the expression &x as if it had type float*. We may naively expect the result of the second cout to be 0 but with optimization enabled using -O2 both gcc and clang produce the following result:
0 1
which may not be expected but is perfectly valid, since we have invoked undefined behavior. A float can not validly alias an int object. Therefore the optimizer can assume the constant 1 stored when dereferencing i will be the return value since a store through f could not validly affect an int object. Plugging the code in Compiler Explorer shows this is exactly what is happening:
foo(float*, int*): # @foo(float*, int*) mov dword ptr [rsi], 1 mov dword ptr [rdi], 0 mov eax, 1 ret
The optimizer using Type-Based Alias Analysis (TBAA)1 assumes 1 will be returned and directly moves the constant value into register eax which carries the return value. TBAA uses the languages rules about what types are allowed to alias to optimize loads and stores. In this case, TBAA knows that a float can not alias an int and optimizes away the load of i.
Now, to the Rule-Book
What exactly does the standard say we are allowed and not allowed to do? The standard language is not straightforward, so for each item I will try to provide code examples that demonstrate the meaning.
What does the C11 standard say?
The C11 standard2 says the following in section 6.5 Expressions paragraph 7:
An object shall have its stored value accessed only by an lvalue expression3 that has one of the following types:88)
- a type compatible with the effective type of the object,
int x = 1; int *p = &x; printf("%d\n", *p); // *p gives us an lvalue // expression of type int which is compatible // with int - a qualified version of a type compatible with the effective type of the object,
int x = 1; const int *p = &x; printf("%d\n", *p); // *p gives us an lvalue // expression of type const int which is // compatible with int - a type that is the signed or unsigned type corresponding to the effective type of the object,
int x = 1; unsigned int *p = (unsigned int*)&x; printf("%u\n", *p ); // *p gives us an lvalue // expression of type unsigned int which // corresponds to the effective type of the // objectNote: There is a gcc/clang extension4 that allows assigning
unsigned int*toint*even though they are not compatible types. - a type that is the signed or unsigned type corresponding to a qualified version of the effective type of the object,
int x = 1; const unsigned int *p = (const unsigned int*)&x; printf("%u\n", *p ); // *p gives us an lvalue // expression of type const unsigned int which // is a unsigned type that corresponds with to // a qualified version of the effective type of // the object - an aggregate or union type that includes one of the aforementioned types among its members (including, recursively, a member of a sub-aggregate or contained union), or
struct foo { int x; }; void foobar( struct foo *fp, int *ip ); // struct foo is an aggregate that includes // int among its members so it can alias with // *ip foo f; foobar( &f, &f.x ); - a character type.
int x = 65; char *p = (char *)&x; printf("%c\n", *p ); // *p gives us an lvalue // expression of type char which is a // character type. The results are not // portable due to endianness issues.
What does the C++17 Draft Standard say
The C++17 draft standard5 in section [basic.lval] paragraph 11 says:
If a program attempts to access the stored value of an object through a glvalue of other than one of the following types the behavior is undefined:63 (11.1) — the dynamic type of the object,
void *p = malloc( sizeof(int) ); // We have
// allocated storage but not started the
// lifetime of an object
int *ip = new (p) int{0}; // Placement new
// changes the dynamic type of the object to int
std::cout << *ip << "\n"; // *ip gives us a
// glvalue expression of type int which matches
// the dynamic type of the allocated object
(11.2) – a cv-qualified version of the dynamic type of the object,
int x = 1;
const int *cip = &x;
std::cout << *cip << "\n"; // *cip gives us a
// glvalue expression of type const int which
// is a cv-qualified version of the dynamic
// type of x
(11.3) – a type similar (as defined in 7.5) to the dynamic type of the object,
int *a[3];
const int *const *p = a;
const int *q = p[1]; // ok, read of 'int*'
// through lvalue of similar type 'const int*'
(11.4) – a type that is the signed or unsigned type corresponding to the dynamic type of the object,
// Both si and ui are signed or unsigned
// types corresponding to each others dynamic
// types. We can see from this godbolt
// https://godbolt.org/g/KowGXB) the
// optimizer assumes aliasing.
signed int foo( signed int &si,
unsigned int &ui ) {
si = 1;
ui = 2;
return si;
}
(11.5) – a type that is the signed or unsigned type corresponding to a cv-qualified version of the dynamic type of the object,
signed int foo( const signed int &si1,
int &si2);
// Hard to show this one assumes aliasing
(11.6) – an aggregate or union type that includes one of the aforementioned types among its elements or non-static data members (including, recursively, an element or non-static data member of a sub-aggregate or contained union),
struct foo {
int x;
};
// Compiler Explorer example (https://
// godbolt.org/g/z2wJTC) shows aliasing
// assumption
int foobar( foo &fp, int &ip ) {
fp.x = 1;
ip = 2;
return fp.x;
}
foo f;
foobar( f, f.x );
(11.7) – a type that is a (possibly cv-qualified) base class type of the dynamic type of the object,
struct foo { int x ; };
struct bar : public foo {};
int foobar( foo &f, bar &b ) {
f.x = 1;
b.x = 2;
return f.x;
}
(11.8) – a char, unsigned char, or std::byte type.
int foo( std::byte &b, uint32_t &ui ) {
b = static_cast<std::byte>('a');
ui = 0xFFFFFFFF;
return std::to_integer<int>( b ); // b gives
// us a glvalue expression of type
// std::byte which can alias an object of
// type uint32_t
}
Worth noting signed char is not included in the list above, this is a notable difference from C which says a character type.
Subtle differences
So although we can see that C and C++ say similar things about aliasing there are some differences that we should be aware of. C++ does not have C’s concept of effective type [CPP-3] or compatible type [CCP-4] and C does not have C++’s concept of dynamic type [CCP-5] or similar type. Although both have lvalue and rvalue expressions, C++ also has glvalue, prvalue and xvalue expressions6. These differences are mostly out of scope for this article but one interesting example is how to create an object out of malloc’d memory. In C we can set the effective type7, for example, by writing to the memory through an lvalue or memcpy.8 (See Listing 2.)
// The following is valid C but not valid C++ void *p = malloc(sizeof(float)); float f = 1.0f; memcpy( p, &f, sizeof(float)); // Effective type of *p is float in C or float *fp = p; *fp = 1.0f; // Effective type of *p is float in C |
| Listing 2 |
Neither of these methods is sufficient in C++ which requires placement new:
float *fp = new (p) float{1.0f} ;
// Dynamic type of *p is now float
Are int8_t and uint8_t char types?
Theoretically neither int8_t nor uint8_t have to be char types but practically they are implemented that way. This is important because if they are really char types then they also alias similar to char types. If you are unaware of this it can lead to surprising performance impacts [StackOverflow]. We can see that glibc typedefs int8_t [Github-1] and uint8_t [Github-2] to signed char and unsigned char respectively.
This would be hard to change since for C++ it would be an ABI break. This would change name mangling and would break any API using either of those types in their interface.
What is type punning
We have gotten to this point and we may be wondering, why would we want to alias? The answer typically is to type pun, often the methods used violate strict aliasing rules.
Sometimes we want to circumvent the type system and interpret an object as a different type. This is called type punning, to reinterpret a segment of memory as another type. Type punning is useful for tasks that want access to the underlying representation of an object to view, transport or manipulate. Typical areas we find type punning being used are compilers, serialization, networking code, etc…
Traditionally this has been accomplished by taking the address of the object, casting it to a pointer of the type we want to reinterpret it as and then accessing the value, or in other words by aliasing. For example, see Listing 3.
int x = 1 ; // In C, not a valid aliasing float *fp = (float*)&x ; // In C++, not a valid aliasing float *fp = reinterpret_cast<float*>(&x) ; printf( “%f\n”, *fp ) ; |
| Listing 3 |
As we have seen earlier this is not a valid aliasing, so we are invoking undefined behavior. But traditionally compilers did not take advantage of strict aliasing rules and this type of code usually just worked, developers have unfortunately gotten used to doing things this way. A common alternate method for type punning is through unions, which is valid in C but undefined behavior in C++139 (see Listing 4).
union u1
{
int n;
float f;
};
union u1 u;
u.f = 1.0f;
printf( "%d\n", u.n ); // UB in C++ n is not the
// active member
|
| Listing 4 |
This is not valid in C++ and some consider the purpose of unions to be solely for implementing variant types and feel using unions for type punning is an abuse.
How do we Type Pun correctly?
The standard blessed method for type punning in both C and C++ is memcpy. This may seem a little heavy handed but the optimizer should recognize the use of memcpy for type punning and optimize it away and generate a register to register move. For example, if we know int64_t is the same size as double:
static_assert( sizeof( double ) ==
sizeof( int64_t ) );
// C++17 does not require a message
we can use memcpy:
void func1( double d ) {
std::int64_t n;
std::memcpy(&n, &d, sizeof d);
//...
At a sufficient optimization level, any decent modern compiler generates identical code to the previously mentioned reinterpret_cast method or union method for type punning. Examining the generated code we see it uses just register mov.
Type punning arrays
But, what if we want to type pun an array of unsigned char into a series of unsigned ints and then perform an operation on each unsigned int value? We can use memcpy to pun the unsigned char array into a temporary of type unsigned int. The optimizer will still manage to see through the memcpy and optimize away both the temporary and the copy and operate directly on the underlying data (Listing 5).
// Simple operation just return the value back
int foo( unsigned int x ) { return x ; }
// Assume len is a multiple of sizeof(unsigned
// int)
int bar( unsigned char *p, size_t len ) {
int result = 0;
for( size_t index = 0; index < len;
index += sizeof(unsigned int) ) {
unsigned int ui = 0;
std::memcpy( &ui, &p[index],
sizeof(unsigned int) );
result += foo( ui ) ;
}
return result;
}
|
| Listing 5 |
In the example, we take a char* p, assume it points to multiple chunks of sizeof(unsigned int) data, we type pun each chunk of data as an unsigned int, compute foo() on each chunk of type punned data and sum it into result and return the final value.
The assembly for the body of the loop shows the optimizer reduces the body into a direct access of the underlying unsigned char array as an unsigned int, adding it directly into eax:
add eax, dword ptr [rdi + rcx]
Listing 6 is the same code but using reinterpret_cast to type pun (violates strict aliasing).
// Assume len is a multiple of sizeof(unsigned int)
int bar( unsigned char *p, size_t len ) {
int result = 0;
for( size_t index = 0; index < len;
index += sizeof(unsigned int) ) {
unsigned int ui = *reinterpret_cast
<unsigned int*>(&p[index]);
result += foo( ui );
}
return result;
}
|
| Listing 6 |
C++20 and bit_cast
In C++20 we may gain bit_cast10, which gives a simple and safe way to type-pun as well as being usable in a constexpr context.
The following is an example of how to use bit_cast to type pun an unsigned int to float:
std::cout << bit_cast<float>(0x447a0000) << "\n"; //assuming sizeof(float) == sizeof(unsigned int)
In the case where To and From types don’t have the same size, it requires us to use an intermediate struct11. We will use a struct containing a sizeof( unsigned int ) character array (assumes 4 byte unsigned int) to be the From type and unsigned int as the To type. (See Listing 7.)
struct uint_chars {
unsigned char arr[sizeof( unsigned int )] = {} ;
// Assume sizeof( unsigned int ) == 4
};
// Assume len is a multiple of 4
int bar( unsigned char *p, size_t len ) {
int result = 0;
for( size_t index = 0;
index < len; index += sizeof(unsigned int) )
{
uint_chars f;
std::memcpy( f.arr, &p[index],
sizeof(unsigned int));
unsigned int result =
bit_cast<unsigned int>(f);
result += foo( result );
}
return result;
}
|
| Listing 7 |
It is unfortunate that we need this intermediate type but that is the current constraint of bit_cast.
What is the common initial sequence
The common initial sequence is defined in the draft standard [Standard-1, para 22], which gives the following examples to demonstrate the concept:
struct A { int a; char b; };
struct B { const int b1; volatile char b2; };
struct C { int c; unsigned : 0; char b; };
struct D { int d; char b : 4; };
struct E { unsigned int e; char b; };
The common initial sequence of A and B comprises all members of either class.
The common initial sequence of A and C and of A and D comprises the first member in each case.
The common initial sequence of A and E is empty.
It says that we are allowed to read the non-static data member of the non-active member if it is part of the common initial sequence of the structs [Standard-1, para25]
struct T1 { int a, b; };
struct T2 { int c; double d; };
union U { T1 t1; T2 t2; };
int f() {
U u = { { 1, 2 } }; // active member is t1
return u.t2.c; // OK, as if u.t1.a were
// nominated
}
Note, this is not allowed in a constant expression context [Standard-2, para 5.9]. So something like Listing 8 would be ok.
union U {
U(int x) : a{.x=x}{}
struct { int x; } a;
struct { int x; } b;
};
int f() {
U u(10);
u.b.x = 20; // change active member,
// starts lifetime of b
u.a.x = 20; // change active member again,
// starts lifetime of a
return u.b.x; // ok common initial sequence
}
int main() {
int a = f();
}
|
| Listing 8 |
Note that this relies on unions [Standard-3 para 6.3]. This says if the assignment is starting the lifetime of the proper type with limitations such as using a built-in or a trivial assignment operator, the example in Listing 9 invokes undefined behavior.
union U {
U(int x) : a{.x=x}{}
struct {
int x;
auto &operator=(int r) {
x = r ;
return *this;
}
} a;
struct {
int x;
auto &operator=(int r) {
x = r ;
return *this;
}
} b;
};
int f() {
U u(10);
u.b = 20; // Does not change the active member
// assignment is not trivial
// and UB b/c of store to out of
// lifetime object
u.a = 20; // Does not change the active member
// assignment is not trivial
// and UB b/c of store to out of
// lifetime object
return u.b.x; // still common initial sequence
// but we have already invoked UB so not ok
}
|
| Listing 9 |
There can be other tricky cases to watch out for (see Listing 10).
union A {
struct { int x, y; } a;
struct { int x, y; } b;
};
int f() {
A a = {.a = {}};
a.b.x = 1; // Change active member,
// starts lifetime of b, there is no
// initialization of y
return a.b.y; // UB
}
|
| Listing 10 |
It is likely the common initial sequence rule was put in place to allow discriminated union without having the discriminator outside the union and therefore likely have padding between the discriminator and the union itself, for example:
union { struct { char kind; ... } a;
struct { char kind; ... } b; ... };
So the common initial sequence rule would allow us to read the kind discriminator regardless of which member was active.
Alignment
We have seen in previous examples that violating strict aliasing rules can lead to stores being optimized away. Violating strict aliasing rules can also lead to violations of alignment requirement. Both the C and C++ standard state that objects have alignment requirements which restrict where objects can be allocated (in memory) and therefore accessed.12 C11 section 6.2.8 Alignment of objects says:
Complete object types have alignment requirements which place restrictions on the addresses at which objects of that type may be allocated. An alignment is an implementation-defined integer value representing the number of bytes between successive addresses at which a given object can be allocated. An object type imposes an alignment requirement on every object of that type: stricter alignment can be requested using the _Alignas keyword.
The C++17 draft standard in section [basic.align] paragraph 1:
Object types have alignment requirements (6.7.1, 6.7.2) which place restrictions on the addresses at which an object of that type may be allocated. An alignment is an implementation-defined integer value representing the number of bytes between successive addresses at which a given object can be allocated. An object type imposes an alignment requirement on every object of that type; stricter alignment can be requested using the alignment specifier (10.6.2).
Both C99 and C11 are explicit that a conversion that results in a unaligned pointer is undefined behavior, section 6.3.2.3 Pointers says:
A pointer to an object or incomplete type may be converted to a pointer to a different object or incomplete type. If the resulting pointer is not correctly aligned) for the pointed-to type, the behavior is undefined. …
Although C++ is not as explicit, I believe this sentence from [basic.align] paragraph 1 is sufficient:
…An object type imposes an alignment requirement on every object of that type;…
An example
So let’s assume:
alignof(char)andalignof(int)are 1 and 4 respectivelysizeof(int)is 4
Then type punning an array of char of size 4 as an int violates strict aliasing but may also violate alignment requirements if the array has an alignment of 1 or 2 bytes.
char arr[4] = { 0x0F, 0x0, 0x0, 0x00 };
// Could be allocated on a 1 or 2 byte boundary
int x = *reinterpret_cast<int*>(arr);
// Undefined behavior we have an unaligned
// pointer
Which could lead to reduced performance or a bus error13 in some situations. Whereas using alignas to force the array to the same alignment of int would prevent violating alignment requirements:
alignas(alignof(int)) char arr[4] =
{ 0x0F, 0x0, 0x0, 0x00 };
int x = *reinterpret_cast<int*>(arr);
Atomics
Another unexpected penalty to unaligned accesses is that it breaks atomics on some architectures. Atomic stores may not appear atomic to other threads on x86 if they are misaligned.14
Catching strict aliasing violations
We don’t have a lot of good tools for catching strict aliasing in C++, the tools we have will catch some cases of strict aliasing violations and some cases of misaligned loads and stores.
gcc using the flag -fstrict-aliasing and -Wstrict-aliasingid15 can catch some cases although not without false positives/negatives. For example the cases in Listing 1116 will generate a warning in gcc, although it will not catch this additional case:
int a = 1;
short j;
float f = 1.f; // Originally not initialized but
// tis-kernel caught it was being accessed w/
// an indeterminate value below
printf("%i\n", j =
*(reinterpret_cast<short*>(&a)));
printf("%i\n", j =
*(reinterpret_cast<int*>(&f)));
|
| Listing 11 |
int *p;
p=&a;
printf("%i\n",
j = *(reinterpret_cast<short*>(p)));
Although clang allows these flags it apparently does not actually implement the warnings.17
Another tool we have available to us is ASan18, which can catch misaligned loads and stores. Although these are not directly strict aliasing violations they are a common result of strict aliasing violations. For example the following cases19 will generate runtime errors when built with clang using -fsanitize=address:
int *x = new int[2]; // 8 bytes: [0,7].
int *u = (int*)((char*)x + 6); // regardless of
// alignment of x this will not be an aligned
// address
*u = 1; // Access to range [6-9]
printf( "%d\n", *u ); // Access to range [6-9]
The last tool I will recommend is C++ specific and not strictly a tool but a coding practice, don’t allow C-style casts. Both gcc and clang will produce a diagnostic for C-style casts using -Wold-style-cast. This will force any undefined type puns to use reinterpret_cast, in general reinterpret_cast should be a flag for closer code review. It is also easier to search your code base for reinterpret_cast to perform an audit.
For C we have all the tools already covered and we also have tis-interpreter20, a static analyzer that exhaustively analyzes a program for a large subset of the C language. Given a C verions of the earlier example where using -fstrict-aliasing misses one case (Listing 12), tis-interpeter is able to catch all three. The example in Listing 13 invokes tis-kernal as tis-interpreter (output is edited for brevity).
int a = 1;
short j;
float f = 1.0 ;
printf("%i\n", j = *((short*)&a));
printf("%i\n", j = *((int*)&f));
int *p;
p=&a;
printf("%i\n", j = *((short*)p));
|
| Listing 12 |
./bin/tis-kernel -sa example1.c ... example1.c:9:[sa] warning: The pointer (short *)(& a) has type short *. It violates strict aliasing rules by accessing a cell with effective type int. ... example1.c:10:[sa] warning: The pointer (int *) (& f) has type int *. It violates strict aliasing rules by accessing a cell with effective type float. Callstack: main ... example1.c:15:[sa] warning: The pointer (short *)p has type short *. It violates strict aliasing rules by accessing a cell with effective type int. |
| Listing 13 |
Finally there is TySan21 [Finkel17] which is currently in development. This sanitizer adds type checking information in a shadow memory segment and checks accesses to see if they violate aliasing rules. The tool potentially should be able to catch all aliasing violations but may have a large run-time overhead.
Conclusion
We have learned about aliasing rules in both C and C++, what it means that the compiler expects that we follow these rules strictly and the consequences of not doing so. We learned about some tools that will help us catch some misuses of aliasing. We have seen a common use for type aliasing is type punning and how to type pun correctly.
Optimizers are slowly getting better at type based aliasing analysis and already break some code that relies on strict aliasing violations. We can expect the optimizations will only get better and will break more code we have been used to just working.
We have standard conformant methods for type punning and in release and sometimes debug builds these methods should be cost free abstractions. We have some tools for catching strict aliasing violations but for C++ they will only catch a small fraction of the cases and for C with tis-interpreter we should be able to catch most violations.
Thank you to those who provided feedback on this write-up: JF Bastien, Christopher Di Bella, Pascal Cuoq, Matt P. Dziubinski, Patrice Roy, Richard Smith and Ólafur Waage.
Of course in the end, all errors are the author’s.
References
[CPP-1] ‘Undefined behavior’ https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/ub
[CPP-2] ‘reinterpret_cast conversion’ https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/reinterpret_cast
[CPP-3] ‘Effective type’ https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/object#Effective_type
[CCP-4] ‘Compatible types’ https://en.cppreference.com/w/c/language/type#Compatible_types
[CCP-5] ‘Dynamic type’ https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/type#Dynamic_type
[Finkel17] Hal Finkel (2017) ‘The Type Sanitizer: Free Yourself From from -fn-strict-aliasing’, presentation at the LLVM Developers’ Meeting, available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAXJeN7k32Y
[Github-1] int8_t: https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/sysdeps/generic/stdint.h#L36
[Github-2] unint8_t: https://github.com/lattera/glibc/blob/master/sysdeps/generic/stdint.h#L48
[StackOverflow] ‘Using this pointer causes strange deoptimization in hot loop’ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26295216/using-this-pointer-causes-strange-deoptimization-in-hot-loop
[Standard-1] Draft standard, Classes: Class members: General, paragraphs 22 (http://eel.is/c++draft/class.mem#general-22) and 25 (http://eel.is/c++draft/class.mem#general-25)
[Standard-2] Draft standard, Expressions: Constant expressions, para 5.9: http://eel.is/c++draft/expr.const#5.9
[Standard-3] Draft standard, Classes: Unions: General, paragraph 6.3: http://eel.is/c++draft/class.union#general-6.sentence-3
Footnotes
- Type-Based Alias Analysis: https://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/type-based-alias-analysis/184404273
- Draft C11 standard is freely available: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf
- Understanding lvalues and rvalues in C and C++:https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/12/15/understanding-lvalues-and-rvalues-in-c-and-c
- Why does gcc and clang allow assigning an unsigned int * to int * since they are not compatible types, although they may alias https://twitter.com/shafikyaghmour/status/957702383810658304 and https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2003-10/msg00184.html
- Draft C++17 standard is freely available https://github.com/cplusplus/draft/raw/master/papers/n4659.pdf
- ‘New’ Value Terminology which explains how glvalue, xvalue and prvalue came about http://www.stroustrup.com/terminology.pdf
- Effective types and aliasing https://gustedt.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/effective-types-and-aliasing/
- ‘constructing’ a trivially-copyable object with memcpy https://stackoverflow.com/q/30114397/1708801
- Unions and memcpy and type punning: https://stackoverflow.com/q/25664848/1708801
- Revision two of the
bit_cast<>proposal http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2017/p0476r2.html - How to use
bit_castto type pun a unsigned char array https://gist.github.com/shafik/a956a17d00024b32b35634eeba1eb49e - Unaligned access:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_error#Unaligned_access
- A bug story: data alignment on x86 http://pzemtsov.github.io/2016/11/06/bug-story-alignment-on-x86.html
- Demonstrates torn loads for misaligned atomics https://gist.github.com/michaeljclark/31fc67fe41d233a83e9ec8e3702398e8 and tweet referencing this example https://twitter.com/corkmork/status/944421528829009925
- gcc documentation for
-Wstrict-aliasinghttps://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Warning-Options.html#index-Wstrict-aliasing - Stack Overflow questions examples came from https://stackoverflow.com/q/25117826/1708801
- Comments indicating clang does not implement
-Wstrict -aliasinghttps://github.com/llvm-mirror/clang/blob/master/test/Misc/warning-flags-tree.c - ASan documentation https://clang.llvm.org/docs/AddressSanitizer.html
- The unaligned access example take from the Address Sanitizer Algorithm wiki https://github.com/google/sanitizers/wiki/AddressSanitizerAlgorithm#unaligned-accesses
- TrustInSoft tis-interpreter https://trust-in-soft.com/tis-interpreter/, strict aliasing checks can be run by building tis-kernel https://github.com/TrustInSoft/tis-kernel
- TySan patches, clang: https://reviews.llvm.org/D32199 runtime: https://reviews.llvm.org/D32197 llvm: https://reviews.llvm.org/D32198
An anonymous contribution.
