Re: [avr-gcc-list] How to (efficeiently !!!) test a bitwithinamulti-byte intege

[David Brown]

> From: Vincent Trouilliez <address@hidden>
>
> [...]
>
> >About the -Os flag, I noticed this morning that it managed MASSIVE code
> >size reduction ! SO far I had been using just -O (I guess that means no
> >particular optimisation ?), and the program is about 13KB in size. With
> >-Os, it's only 10KB !!!  Sadly, for some reason, when compiled with this
> >flag, my program misbehaves badly (I get massive corruption of the LCD
> >display) !! Too bad... :o(
>
> I believe it was Gerry Weinburg who once wrote that "optimization is
easy --
> if you don't have to get the right answer."
>
> I suspect, though, that some of your code might be relying on behavior
> that's not guaranteed (e.g., the value of an uninitialized variable)
rather
> than a bug in the optimizer.
>
> Regards,
>
>    -=Dave
>

The bug is almost certainly a delay loop variable that is not declared
volatile.  The delay function is probably something like:

void shortDelay(void) {
    uint8_t n = 50;
    while (n--);
}

That (might) work fine with little or no optomisation, but when optomisation
is on, it fails.  The solution is simply to make n "volatile".  Note that it
will not give you precise control of your delay - different optomisations or
different compiler versions might give slightly different code, and may or
may not inline the function.  But in a case like this it doesn't matter -
all you are looking for is a slight delay, and it doesn't matter if it is
too long.  I've done exactly this sort of thing (with "volatile", naturally)
myself for LCD routines.

mvh.,

David