gcc, strict-aliasing, and casting through a union

Question

Do you have any horror stories to tell? The GCC Manual recently added a warning regarding -fstrict-aliasing and casting a pointer through a union:

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Answer 1

Here is mine: In think this is a bug in all GCC v5.x and later

#include <iostream>
#include <complex>
#include <pmmintrin.h>

template <class Scalar_type, class Vector_type>
class simd {
 public:
  typedef Vector_type vector_type;
  typedef Scalar_type scalar_type;
  typedef union conv_t_union {
    Vector_type v;
    Scalar_type s[sizeof(Vector_type) / sizeof(Scalar_type)];
    conv_t_union(){};
  } conv_t;

  static inline constexpr int Nsimd(void) {
    return sizeof(Vector_type) / sizeof(Scalar_type);
  }

  Vector_type v;

  template <class functor>
  friend inline simd SimdApply(const functor &func, const simd &v) {
    simd ret;
    simd::conv_t conv;

    conv.v = v.v;
    for (int i = 0; i < simd::Nsimd(); i++) {
      conv.s[i] = func(conv.s[i]);
    }
    ret.v = conv.v;
    return ret;
  }

};

template <class scalar>
struct RealFunctor {
  scalar operator()(const scalar &a) const {
    return std::real(a);
  }
};

template <class S, class V>
inline simd<S, V> real(const simd<S, V> &r) {
  return SimdApply(RealFunctor<S>(), r);
}



typedef simd<std::complex<double>, __m128d> vcomplexd;

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
  vcomplexd a,b;
  a.v=_mm_set_pd(2.0,1.0);
  b = real(a);

  vcomplexd::conv_t conv;
  conv.v = b.v;
  for(int i=0;i<vcomplexd::Nsimd();i++){
    std::cout << conv.s[i]<<" ";
  }
  std::cout << std::endl;
}

Should give

c010200:~ peterboyle$ g++-mp-5 Gcc-test.cc -std=c++11 
c010200:~ peterboyle$ ./a.out 
(1,0) 

But under -O3: I THINK THIS IS WRONG AND A COMPILER ERROR

c010200:~ peterboyle$ g++-mp-5 Gcc-test.cc -std=c++11 -O3 
c010200:~ peterboyle$ ./a.out 
(0,0) 

Under g++4.9

c010200:~ peterboyle$ g++-4.9 Gcc-test.cc -std=c++11 -O3 
c010200:~ peterboyle$ ./a.out 
(1,0) 

Under llvm xcode

c010200:~ peterboyle$ g++ Gcc-test.cc -std=c++11 -O3 
c010200:~ peterboyle$ ./a.out 
(1,0)