C macro to create a bit mask -- possible? And have I found a GCC bug?

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I am somewhat curious about creating a macro to generate a bit mask for a device register, up to 64bits. Such that BIT_MASK(31) produces 0xffffffff.

However, several C examples do not work as thought, as I get 0x7fffffff instead. It is as-if the compiler is assuming I want signed output, not unsigned. So I tried 32, and noticed that the value wraps back around to 0. This is because of C standards stating that if the shift value is greater than or equal to the number of bits in the operand to be shifted, then the result is undefined. That makes sense.

But, given the following program, bits2.c:

#include <stdio.h>

#define BIT_MASK(foo) ((unsigned int)(1 << foo) - 1)

int main()
{
    unsigned int foo;
    char *s = "32";

    foo = atoi(s);
    printf("%d %.8x\n", foo, BIT_MASK(foo));

    foo = 32;
    printf("%d %.8x\n", foo, BIT_MASK(foo));

    return (0);
}


If I compile with gcc -O2 bits2.c -o bits2, and run it on a Linux/x86_64 machine, I get the following:

32 00000000
32 ffffffff


If I take the same code and compile it on a Linux/MIPS (big-endian) machine, I get this:

32 00000000
32 00000000


On the x86_64 machine, if I use gcc -O0 bits2.c -o bits2, then I get:

32 00000000
32 00000000


If I tweak BIT_MASK to ((unsigned int)(1UL << foo) - 1), then the output is 32 00000000 for both forms, regardless of gcc's optimization level.

So it appears that on x86_64, gcc is optimizing something incorrectly OR the undefined nature of left-shifting 32 bits on a 32-bit number is being determined by the hardware of each platform.




Given all of the above, is it possible to programatically create a C macro that creates a bit mask from either a single bit or a range of bits?

I.e.:

BIT_MASK(6) = 0x40
BIT_FIELD_MASK(8, 12) = 0x1f00

Assume BIT_MASK and BIT_FIELD_MASK operate from a 0-index (0-31). BIT_FIELD_MASK is to create a mask from a bit range, i.e., 8:12.

c
bit-manipulation
asked on Stack Overflow Jan 8, 2012 by Kumba

8 Answers

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Here is a version of the macro which will work for arbitrary positive inputs. (Negative inputs still invoke undefined behavior...)

#include <limits.h>
/* A mask with x least-significant bits set, possibly 0 or >=32 */
#define BIT_MASK(x) \
    (((x) >= sizeof(unsigned) * CHAR_BIT) ?
        (unsigned) -1 : (1U << (x)) - 1)

Of course, this is a somewhat dangerous macro as it evaluates its argument twice. This is a good opportunity to use a static inline if you use GCC or target C99 in general.

static inline unsigned bit_mask(int x)
{
    return (x >= sizeof(unsigned) * CHAR_BIT) ?
        (unsigned) -1 : (1U << x) - 1;
}

As Mysticial noted, shifting more than 32 bits with a 32-bit integer results in implementation-defined undefined behavior. Here are three different implementations of shifting:

  • On x86, only examine the low 5 bits of the shift amount, so x << 32 == x.
  • On PowerPC, only examine the low 6 bits of the shift amount, so x << 32 == 0 but x << 64 == x.
  • On Cell SPUs, examine all bits, so x << y == 0 for all y >= 32.

However, compilers are free to do whatever they want if you shift a 32-bit operand 32 bits or more, and they are even free to behave inconsistently (or make demons fly out your nose).

Implementing BIT_FIELD_MASK:

This will set bit a through bit b (inclusive), as long as 0 <= a <= 31 and 0 <= b <= 31.

#define BIT_MASK(a, b) (((unsigned) -1 >> (31 - (b))) & ~((1U << (a)) - 1))
answered on Stack Overflow Jan 8, 2012 by Dietrich Epp • edited Jan 8, 2012 by Dietrich Epp
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Shifting by more than or equal to the size of the integer type is undefined behavior.
So no, it's not a GCC bug.

In this case, the literal 1 is of type int which is 32-bits in both systems that you used. So shifting by 32 will invoke this undefined behavior.

In the first case, the compiler is not able to resolve the shift-amount to 32. So it likely just issues the normal shift-instruction. (which in x86 uses only the bottom 5-bits) So you get:

(unsigned int)(1 << 0) - 1

which is zero.

In the second case, GCC is able to resolve the shift-amount to 32. Since it is undefined behavior, it (apparently) just replaces the entire result with 0:

(unsigned int)(0) - 1

so you get ffffffff.

So this is a case of where GCC is using undefined behavior as an opportunity to optimize.
(Though personally, I'd prefer that it emits a warning instead.)

Related: Why does integer overflow on x86 with GCC cause an infinite loop?

answered on Stack Overflow Jan 8, 2012 by Mysticial • edited May 23, 2017 by Community
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Assuming you have a working mask for n bits, e.g.

// set the first n bits to 1, rest to 0
#define BITMASK1(n) ((1ULL << (n)) - 1ULL)

you can make a range bitmask by shifting again:

// set bits [k+1, n] to 1, rest to 0
#define BITNASK(n, k) ((BITMASK(n) >> k) << k)

The type of the result is unsigned long long int in any case.

As discussed, BITMASK1 is UB unless n is small. The general version requires a conditional and evaluates the argument twice:

#define BITMASK1(n) (((n) < sizeof(1ULL) * CHAR_BIT ? (1ULL << (n)) : 0) - 1ULL)
answered on Stack Overflow Jan 8, 2012 by Kerrek SB • edited Jan 8, 2012 by Kerrek SB
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What about:

#define BIT_MASK(n) (~(((~0ULL) >> (n)) << (n)))

This works on all endianess system, doing -1 to invert all bits doesn't work on big-endian system.

answered on Stack Overflow Jun 20, 2013 by jyavenard • edited Apr 27, 2019 by jamesdlin
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#define BIT_MASK(foo) ((~ 0ULL) >> (64-foo))

I'm a bit paranoid about this. I think this assumes that unsigned long long is exactly 64 bits. But it's a start and it works up to 64 bits.

Maybe this is correct:

define BIT_MASK(foo) ((~ 0ULL) >> (sizeof(0ULL)*8-foo))
answered on Stack Overflow Jan 8, 2012 by Aaron McDaid
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Since you need to avoid shifting by as many bits as there are in the type (whether that's unsigned long or unsigned long long), you have to be more devious in the masking when dealing with the full width of the type. One way is to sneak up on it:

#define BIT_MASK(n) (((n) == CHAR_BIT * sizeof(unsigned long long)) ? \
                         ((((1ULL << (n-1)) - 1) << 1) | 1) : \
                           ((1ULL << (n  )) - 1))

For a constant n such as 64, the compiler evaluates the expression and generates only the case that is used. For a runtime variable n, this fails just as badly as before if n is greater than the number of bits in unsigned long long (or is negative), but works OK without overflow for values of n in the range 0..(CHAR_BIT * sizeof(unsigned long long)).

Note that CHAR_BIT is defined in <limits.h>.

answered on Stack Overflow Jan 8, 2012 by Jonathan Leffler
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A "traditional" formula (1ul<<n)-1 has different behavior on different compilers/processors for n=8*sizeof(1ul). Most commonly it overflows for n=32. Any added conditionals will evaluate n multiple times. Going 64-bits (1ull<<n)-1 is an option, but problem migrates to n=64.

My go-to formula is:

#define BIT_MASK(n) (~( ((~0ull) << ((n)-1)) << 1 ))

It does not overflow for n=64 and evaluates n only once.

As downside it will compile to 2 LSH instructions if n is a variable. Also n cannot be 0 (result will be compiler/processor-specific), but it is a rare possibility for all uses that I have(*) and can be dealt with by adding a guarding "if" statement only where necessary (and even better an "assert" to check both upper and lower boundaries).

(*) - usually data comes from a file or pipe, and size is in bytes. If size is zero, then there's no data, so code should do nothing anyway.

answered on Stack Overflow Sep 8, 2014 by iva2k
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@iva2k's answer avoids branching and is correct when the length is 64 bits. Working on that, you can also do this:

#define BIT_MASK(length) ~(((unsigned long long) -2) << length - 1);

gcc would generate exactly the same code anyway, though.

answered on Stack Overflow Jun 22, 2017 by user1415563 • edited Jun 25, 2017 by user1415563

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