Question

A coworker poked me with this question, after noticing a curious behavior with C++ structs.

Take this trivial code:

struct S {
  int i;
#ifdef TEST
  ~S() {}
#endif
};

void foo (S s) {
  (void)s;
}

int main () {
  foo(S());
  return 0;
}

I have generated the assembly code once without the explicit destructor:

g++-4.7.2 destructor.cc -S -O0 -o destructor_no.s

and later including it:

g++-4.7.2 destructor.cc -DTEST -S -O0 -o destructor_yes.s

This is the code[1] for main in destructor_no.s:

main:
    pushq   %rbp
    movq    %rsp, %rbp
    movl    $0, %eax
    movl    %eax, %edi
    call    _Z3foo1S   // call to foo()
    movl    $0, %eax
    popq    %rbp
    ret

While, instead, if the destructor is defined explicitly:

main:
    pushq   %rbp
    movq    %rsp, %rbp
    subq    $16, %rsp
    movl    $0, -16(%rbp)
    leaq    -16(%rbp), %rax
    movq    %rax, %rdi
    call    _Z3foo1S   // call to foo()
    leaq    -16(%rbp), %rax
    movq    %rax, %rdi
    call    _ZN1SD1Ev  // call to S::~S()
    movl    $0, %eax
    leave
    ret

Now, my assembly knowledge is a bit rusty, but it seems to me that:

1. in the first case, the struct is passed “by value”. I.e., its memory content is copied into the %edi register, that, if I am not mistaken, is the first register used for argument passing in the x86-64 ABI.

2. in the second case, instead, the struct is allocated on the stack, but the foo() function is called with a pointer in %rdi.

Why is there such a difference?

---

Notes:

• The same behavior is confirmed if using gcc-4.6.3, or clang 3.1.

• Of course, if optimizations are enabled, the call to function foo() is completely optimized away in any case.

• An interesting pattern emerges when adding more variables to the struct, if no destructor is explicly provided.

Up to 4 ints (= 16 bytes) are passed through the argument registers:

pushq   %rbp
movq    %rsp, %rbp
subq    $16, %rsp
movl    $0, -16(%rbp)
movl    $0, -12(%rbp)
movl    $0, -8(%rbp)
movl    $0, -4(%rbp)
movq    -16(%rbp), %rdx
movq    -8(%rbp), %rax
movq    %rdx, %rdi
movq    %rax, %rsi
call    _Z3foo1S

but as soon as I add a fifth int to the struct, the argument to the function, still passed “by value”, is now on the stack:

pushq   %rbp
movq    %rsp, %rbp
subq    $56, %rsp
movl    $0, -32(%rbp)
movl    $0, -28(%rbp)
movl    $0, -24(%rbp)
movl    $0, -20(%rbp)
movl    $0, -16(%rbp)
movq    -32(%rbp), %rax
movq    %rax, (%rsp)
movq    -24(%rbp), %rax
movq    %rax, 8(%rsp)
movl    -16(%rbp), %eax
movl    %eax, 16(%rsp)
call    _Z3foo1S

[1] I have removed some lines that I think are unnecessary for the purpose of this question.

Answer 1

In C++03-speak if you define a destructor your struct is not a POD-type anymore. An object of the variant without the destructor behaves like a C struct variable (thus it’s just passed around by value), while the one with the user-defined one behaves like a C++ object.