[Bug libc/6522] New: abort should not be marked noreturn

["dak at gnu dot org" <sourceware-bugzilla at sourceware dot org>]

the principal raison d'etre of abort is to die with a core dump
(typically on failed assertions).  I am not the only person who spent
days of useless post-mortem debugging (or debugging with a breakpoint on
abort) because of gcc's optimization of -fcross-jumping, which means
that gcc recycles a single abort call (with inconsistent stack state)
all across a function.

That means that the core dump has _both_ incoherent and unexpected stack
state, as well as pointing to a completely wrong position in the source
file.

The principal purpose of the noreturn attribute is to allow for
inconsistent stack state and call recycling.  So its effects, if any,
are directly in conflict with the purpose of abort, an unorderly exit
with the main purpose to facilitate debugging.

While technically abort _does_ not return, telling the compiler so is
giving it leave to eradicate its call history.  And that is not useful
at all when debugging.  Since the presence of -g should not alter the
code, abort should not be marked noreturn.

-- 
           Summary: abort should not be marked noreturn
           Product: glibc
           Version: unspecified
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: libc
        AssignedTo: drepper at redhat dot com
        ReportedBy: dak at gnu dot org
                CC: glibc-bugs at sources dot redhat dot com


http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=6522

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