Can compiler optimization introduce bugs?

Question

Today I had a discussion with a friend of mine and we debated for a couple of hours about \"compiler optimization\".

I defended the point that sometimes

Answer 1

I encountered this a few times with a newer compiler building old code. The old code would work but relied on undefined behavior in some cases, like improperly defined / cast operator overload. It would work in VS2003 or VS2005 debug build, but in release it would crash.

Opening up the assembly generated it was clear that the compiler had just removed 80% of the functionality of the function in question. Rewriting the code to not use undefined behavior cleared it up.

More obvious example: VS2008 vs GCC

Declared:

Function foo( const type & tp ); 

Called:

foo( foo2() );

where foo2() returns an object of class type;

Tends to crash in GCC because the object isn't allocated on the stack in this case, but VS does some optimization to get around this and it will probably work.

Answer 2

Is it likely? Not in a major product, but it's certainly possible. Compiler optimizations are generated code; no matter where code comes from (you write it or something generates it), it can contain errors.

Answer 3

I have had a problem in .NET 3.5 if you build with optimization, add another variable to a method which is named similarly to an existing variable of the same type in the same scope then one of the two (new or old variable) will not be valid at runtime and all references to the invalid variable are replaced with references to the other.

So, for example, if I have abcd of MyCustomClass type and I have abdc of MyCustomClass type and I set abcd.a=5 and abdc.a=7 then both variables will have property a=7. To fix the issue both variables should be removed, the program compiled (hopefully without errors) then they should be re-added.

I think I have run into this problem a few times with .NET 4.0 and C# when doing Silverlight applications also. At my last job we ran into the problem quite often in C++. It might have been because the compilations took 15 minutes so we would only build the libraries we needed, but sometimes the optimized code was exactly the same as the previous build even though new code had been added and no build errors had been reported.

Yes, code optimizers are built by smart people. They are also very complicated so having bugs is common. I suggest fully testing any optimized release of a large product. Usually limited use products are not worth a full release, but they should still be generally tested to make sure they perform their common tasks correctly.

Answer 4

Compiler optimization can reveal (or activate) dormant (or hidden) bugs in your code. There may be a bug in your C++ code that you don't know of, that you just don't see it. In that case, it is a hidden or dormant bug, because that branch of the code is not executed [enough number of times].

The likelihood of a bug in your code is much bigger (thousands of times more) than a bug in the compiler's code: Because the compilers are tested extensively. By TDD plus practically by all people who have use them since their release!). So it is virtually unlikely that a bug is discovered by you and not discovered by literally hundreds of thousands of times it is used by other people.

A dormant bug or hidden bug is just a bug that is not revealed itself to the programmer yet. People who can claim that their C++ code does not have (hidden) bugs are very rare. It requires C++ knowledge (very few can claim for that) and extensive testing of the code. It is not just about the programmer, but about the code itself (the style of development). Being bug-prone is in the character of the code (how rigorously it is tested) or/and the programmer (how disciplined is in test and how well knows C++ and programming).

Security+Concurrency bugs: This is even worse if we include concurrency and security as bugs. But after all, these 'are' bugs. Writing a code that is in the first place bug-free in terms of concurrency and security is almost impossible. That's why there is always already a bug in the code, which can be revealed (or forgotten) in compiler optimization.

Answer 5

I certainly agree that it's silly to say the because compilers are written by "smart people" that they are therefore infallible. Smart people designed the Hindenberg and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, too. Even if it's true that compiler-writers are among the smartest programmers out there, it's also true that compilers are among the most complex programs out there. Of course they have bugs.

On the other hand, experience tells us that the reliability of commercial compilers is very high. I've had many many times that someone told me that the reason why is program doesn't work MUST be because of a bug in the compiler because he has checked it very carefully and he is sure that it is 100% correct ... and then we find that in fact the program has an error and not the compiler. I'm trying to think of times that I've personally run across something that I was truly sure was an error in the compiler, and I can only recall one example.

So in general: Trust your compiler. But are they ever wrong? Sure.

Answer 6

Yes, compiler optimizations can be dangerous. Usually hard real-time software projects forbids optimizations for this very reason. Anyway, do you know of any software with no bugs?

Aggressive optimizations may cache or even do strange assumptions with your variables. The problem is not only with the stability of your code, but also they can fool your debugger. I have seen several times a debugger failing to represent the memory contents because some optimizations retained a variable value within the registers of the micro

The very same thing can happen to your code. The optimization puts a variable into a register and do not write to the variable until it has finished. Now imagine how different things can be if your code has pointers to variables in your stack and it has several threads