[Cython] GCC 4.6 unused-but-set-variable warnings

[Vitja Makarov]

2011/7/29 Vitja Makarov <vitja.makarov at gmail.com>:
> 2011/7/29 Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml at behnel.de>:
>> [moving this here from cython-users]
>>
>> Nikolaus Rath, 13.06.2011 16:59:
>>>
>>> Stefan Behnel writes:
>>>>
>>>> Nikolaus Rath, 13.06.2011 01:18:
>>>>>
>>>>> Stefan Behnel writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Nikolaus Rath, 03.06.2011 23:24:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Cython 0.14 generated code triggers lots of  unused-but-set-variable
>>>>>>> warnings (which are new in GCC 4.6).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hmm, that's annoying. We actually generate a lot of useless "dangling
>>>>>> reset to 0" statements for safety (and also as a bit of a "now unused"
>>>>>> hint to the C compiler).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We could get rid of most of them based on control flow analysis, but I
>>>>>> actually like having them there, just in case we accidentally generate
>>>>>> broken code at some point. A NULL pointer is a lot safer than an
>>>>>> arbitrarily dangling address, especially when it comes to CPython heap
>>>>>> allocated memory (which doesn't necessarily get freed, so you may not
>>>>>> get a quick segfault but a read from dead memory).
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't quite understand. The way to get rid of the warnings is to
>>>>> remove the unnecessary variables. How can this result in a dangling
>>>>> address? You'll get a syntax error from gcc about using an undeclared
>>>>> variable.
>>>>
>>>> Ah, sorry. I misunderstood the meaning of the warning message as
>>>> pointing at unnecessary assignments in general. Could you post a C
>>>> code snippet (and the corresponding Cython code) that triggers this? I
>>>> don't have gcc 4.6 available for testing.
>>>
>>> Sure. It's apparently triggered by unused function arguments:
>>>
>>> $ cat test.pyx
>>> class Operations(object):
>>>     def handle_exc(self, fn, exc):
>>>         pass
>>>
>>> $ cython test.pyx
>>>
>>> $ gcc -pthread -fno-strict-aliasing -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O2 -Wall
>>> -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -I/usr/include/python2.6 -c test.c -o test.o
>>> -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -I/usr/include/fuse -Werror -Wall -Wextra
>>> -Wconversion -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-sign-conversion -fno-strict-aliasing
>>> test.c:
>>> test.c:454:13: warning: variable ‘__pyx_v_exc’ set but not used
>>> [-Wunused-but-set-variable]
>>> test.c:453:13: warning: variable ‘__pyx_v_fn’ set but not used
>>> [-Wunused-but-set-variable]
>>> test.c:452:13: warning: variable ‘__pyx_v_self’ set but not used
>>> [-Wunused-but-set-variable]
>>
>> http://trac.cython.org/cython_trac/ticket/704
>>
>> I think this is something that the control flow analysis could deal with.
>> Basically, every parameter that turns out to be unused in the function (and
>> this most likely only happens with parameters) could be ignored, unless it
>> requires a type conversion with potential side effects. In that (unlikely)
>> case, we could still drop the final assignment to the variable itself.
>>
>
> There is entry.cf_unused flag it's set when the whole entry is not used.
>

((6af313c...)) vitja at vitja-laptop:~/work/cython-vitek$ python
cython.py -X warn.unused_arg=True test.pyx
warning: test.pyx:2:19: Unused argument 'self'
warning: test.pyx:2:25: Unused argument 'fn'
warning: test.pyx:2:29: Unused argument 'exc'


-- 
vitja.