Gregory Stark <stark@enterprisedb.com> writes:
>> Tom Lane wrote:
>>> Specifically, I think what you missed is that on some platforms C
>>> functions pass or return float values differently from similar-sized
>>> integer or pointer values (typically, the float values get passed in
>>> floating-point registers).
> But I'm skeptical that it would hit such a wide swathe of the build farm. In
> particular AFAIK the standard ABI for i386 does no such thing.
I did some digging, and it seems you're mistaken. The standard gcc ABI
for both i386 and x86_64 returns floats in float registers (387
registers in the first case, and SSE registers in the second case).
This appears to have been the case for a very long time. I quote from
the manual for gcc 2.95:
`-mno-fp-ret-in-387'
Do not use the FPU registers for return values of functions.
The usual calling convention has functions return values of types
`float' and `double' in an FPU register, even if there is no FPU.
The idea is that the operating system should emulate an FPU.
The option `-mno-fp-ret-in-387' causes such values to be returned
in ordinary CPU registers instead.
It seems very odd that Alvaro's testing on an AMD64 platform didn't
show the problem.
regards, tom lane
