Strict pointer aliasing: is access through a 'volatile' pointer/reference a solution?

Question

On the heels of a specific problem, a self-answer and comments to it, I\'d like to understand if it is a proper solution, workaround/hack or just plain wrong.

Specif

Answer 1

Volatile can't help you avoid undefined behaviour here. So, if it works for you with GCC it's luck.

Let's assume T is a POD. Then, the proper way to do this is

T x = …;
int i;
memcpy(&i,&x,sizeof i);
if (i==0)
  …

There! No strict aliasing problem and no memory alignment problem. GCC even handles memcpy as an intrinsic function (no function call is inserted in this case).