On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 7:37 PM, David Miller <davem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:42:49 -0700 > >> An explicit cast fixes it, and shows that you were aware of the issue: >> >> foo &= ~(foo_t)bar; >> >> and gcc will generate the right logic. Of course, casts then have >> their own problems, which your thing avoids (as would just having a >> "andn" operation in C) > > I just want to mention that this is dangerous in different ways, we > just recently got a patch in the networking that removed such a cast. > The problem is when the cast narrows, f.e.: > > ~(u8)0 > > doesn't do what you think it does. That doesn't evaluate to 0xff. This is the definition of MAC802154_CHAN_NONE? We _should_ have noticed this earlier, as old gcc (e.g. 4.1.2) emits a warning when comparing it to a u8: net/mac802154/monitor.c: In function ‘mac802154_monitor_xmit’: net/mac802154/monitor.c:49: warning: comparison is always false due to limited range of data type net/mac802154/wpan.c: In function ‘mac802154_wpan_xmit’: net/mac802154/wpan.c:323: warning: comparison is always false due to limited range of data type Interestingly, none of this is seen in the build logs of the linux-next build service, which uses gcc 4.2.3, 4.2.4, 4.5.1, and 4.6... Gr{oetje,eeting}s, Geert -- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html