SDCC 4.4.0 Release

Delivery	Planned date	Actual date
SDCC 4.4.0 RC1	2023-12-20	2023-12-21
SDCC 4.4.0 RC2		2024-01-02
SDCC 4.4.0 RC3		2024-01-21
SDCC 4.4.0 Release	2024-01-03	2024-01-29

See the [SDCC 4.4.0 Release Plan].

Tasks

If you think there is a functionality that should be included or a bug that needs to be fixed in the release, please submit it to the Feature Requests at https://sourceforge.net/p/sdcc/feature-requests/ or Bugs at https://sourceforge.net/p/sdcc/bugs/ and copy Request ID and Summary fields to the following table, where:

Request ID: Request ID from Feature Requests or Bugs
Summary: Summary from Feature Requests or Bugs
Proposed by: Who proposed the feature or bug fix
Time: Estimate of the implementation time
Developer: Who will implement the feature or bug fix
Status: Current status

Request ID	Summary	Proposed by	Time	Developer	Status
[feature-requests:#279]	Accessing the stack	spth			work in progress
[Assemblers and Linkers]	sdas merge with asxxxx 5.0	borutr	a lot more	maarten, basxto, (borutr)	work in progress
[feature-requests:#324]	float classification macros	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#380]	Handle static vars like global ones in initialization	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#327]	mcs51 code in device/lib	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#332]	Compound literals	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#403]	Regression testing for pic16	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#450]	K & R function style	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#531]	Algebraic optimization on masked xor	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#530]	Narrowing loop counters	spth			work in progress
[feature-requests:#543]	Leaner source: Remove pic14/pic16 autogenerated header and lib from source tree	spth			POSTPONED
[feature-requests:#253]	Register parameter passing	spth		spth	work in progress
[feature-requests:#597]	Implement C99 header inttypes.h	roybaer		roybaer	DONE
[bugs:#2700]	Debug info for local variables that live in multiple iTemps	spth			POSTPONED
[bugs:#2701]	dwarf debugging: local variables has wrong scope	spth			POSTPONED
[bugs:#2733]	False "overflow in implicit constant conversion" warning	spth			POSTPONED
[bugs:#2906]	static local variables problem	spth			POSTPONED
[bugs:#3303]	Wrong paths in the generated elf file	roybaer		roybaer	work in progress
[bugs:#3491]	Fresh build with --disable-sdbinutils will fail	spth			POSTPONED
[bugs:#3555]	sdbinutils install doesn't respect prefix	spth			POSTPONED
[bugs:#3628]	parallel uCsim build broken	spth		spth	WORKSFORME
[bugs:#3617]	Something weird about Debian GNU/Linux on aarch64 regression tests	spth		spth	DONE
[bugs:#3634]	Problems with shifting wide (> 32 bit) variables)	spth		spth	DONE
[bugs:#3656]	Access to volatile-qualified object is unexpectedly omitted	spth		spth	DONE
[bugs:#3661]	[sdas] Bit shift problem with 4.3.0	spth		spth	DONE
[bugs:#3650]	Regression-testing on OpenBSD amd64 is a fork-bomb	spth		spth	WORKSFORME
[bugs:#3652]	[r2k, r2ka, r3ka] Several bugs in crt0.s	spth		spth	DONE
[bugs:#3642]	Missed complement operation after lrange optimization	spth		spth	DONE
[bugs:#3667]	ds390 regression tests crash on Windows on amd64	spth		spth	DONE
[bugs:#3669]	Can no longer cross-compile for Windows (abort issue in preprocessor)	spth		felixs	DONE
[bugs:#3675]	Parameter sent to wrong function	spth		spth	DONE

Feature List

There is always a problem to create a list of new features when a new SDCC release is announced. The following list is an attempt to create such a list "on the fly". Every time a new feature which is visible or interesting for the SDCC users is implemented, it should be added to the following list.

• Optimizations for rotations.
• struct / union parameters for hc08, s08 and mos6502.
• Many bug fixes for -ms08 --stack-auto.
• struct / union return support for hc08 and s08 (caller side only).
• Generalized constant propagation.
• New command line option --syntax-only to only parse the input.
• Added C99 header inttypes.h
• Added library functions imaxabs, imaxdiv, llabs, strtoimax, strtoll, strtoull, strtoumax, wcsncmp, wcstoimax, wcstol, wcstoll, wcstoul, wcstoull, wcstoumax
• New r800 port to better support the ASCII Corp R800 and Zilog Z280.
• Changed the default calling convention for r2k, r2ka, r3ka, tlcs90, ez80-z80 from version 0 to 1 (this is an ABI break, and will require changes to user-written asm functions or their declarations).
• Improved optimizations for code speed for stm8, pdk, z80 (and related).
• New mos65c02 port to better support the WDC 65C02.

[Aoineko]

Hi,

There is no binaries for SDCC 4.4.0 for win64 platform (https://sourceforge.net/projects/sdcc/files/sdcc-win64/4.4.0/).

Is it a known issue?

win64 have only binaries for RC 1, 2 and 3.

win32 have binaries SDCC 4.4.0, but as I'd like to do a big set of comparative tests with version 4.2.0, which I'm currently using and which is using win64, I need a win64 version of 4.4.0 for tests to be really relevant (at least in terms of build speed).

Best regards,

[Benedikt Freisen]

It is a known issue. There were apparently strange code generation stability issues only affecting 64 bit Windows builds and they could not be resolved in time for the already delayed release. In fact, the 4.4.0 release was therefore announced with the words “Sources, documentation and binaries for GNU/Linux amd64, Windows x86, macOS amd64 are available.”.

[Aoineko]

Do you mean I should not expect any SDCC 4.4.0 version compatible with win64 platform?
Switching to the win32 version could have a significant negative impact on build times.
If there really isn't a win64 version of SDCC 4.4.0 in the near future, I'll do my tests with the win32 version.

[Maarten Brock]

I guess this depends on whether we find a proper solution quickly. If so, there might be an intermediate release. And otherwise there will only be the win32 variant for Windows.

It would be interesting to know about different build times between win32 and win64.