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@cgm999
Last active January 23, 2026 06:44
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Weird issue with compiled C code
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
uint16_t find_inv(uint16_t a) {
uint16_t inv = 1;
for (int i = 0; i < 16; i++) inv *= 2 - a * inv;
return inv;
}
uint16_t mul_a,mul_a_inv;
uint16_t encode(uint16_t x) { return mul_a*x; }
uint16_t decode(uint16_t x) { return x * mul_a_inv; }
int main() {
for(int i=65535;i;i--) {
mul_a = i;
mul_a_inv = find_inv(i);
if(i&1) {
printf("checking i=%d\n",i);
for(int j=65535;j;j--) {
uint16_t rev_j = decode(encode(j));
if(j!=rev_j) printf("i=%d bad rev for j=%d\n",i,j);
}
}
}
return 0;
}
@cgm999
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cgm999 commented Jan 22, 2026

some weirdness related to how fast code is executed..

linux$ gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=gcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=/usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/15.2.1/lto-wrapper
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Configured with: /build/gcc/src/gcc/configure --enable-languages=ada,c,c++,d,fortran,go,lto,m2,objc,obj-c++,rust,cobol --enable-bootstrap --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info  --with-build-config=bootstrap-lto --with-linker-hash-style=gnu --with-system-zlib --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-cet=auto --enable-checking=release --enable-clocale=gnu --enable-default-pie --enable-default-ssp --enable-gnu-indirect-function --enable-gnu-unique-object --enable-libstdcxx-backtrace --enable-link-serialization=1 --enable-linker-build-id --enable-lto --enable-multilib --enable-plugin --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --disable-libssp --disable-libstdcxx-pch --disable-werror
Thread model: posix
Supported LTO compression algorithms: zlib zstd
gcc version 15.2.1 20260103 (GCC) 

linux$ clang -v
clang version 21.1.6
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /usr/bin
Found candidate GCC installation: /usr/bin/../lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/15.2.1
Found candidate GCC installation: /usr/bin/../lib64/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/15.2.1
Selected GCC installation: /usr/bin/../lib64/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/15.2.1
Candidate multilib: .;@m64
Candidate multilib: 32;@m32
Selected multilib: .;@m64

linux$ gcc -O2 -o test-abc test-abc.c  -Wall ; time ./test-abc >/dev/null
real    0m0.901s

linux$ clang -O2 -o test-abc test-abc.c  -Wall; time ./test-abc >/dev/null
real    0m0.897s

comment out  printf line
linux$ gcc -O2 -o test-abc test-abc.c  -Wall ; time ./test-abc >/dev/null
real    0m1.651s

linux$ clang -O2 -o test-abc test-abc.c  -Wall; time ./test-abc >/dev/null
real    0m0.907s

Why is gcc compiled code perform worse?

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