https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=61882
Bug ID: 61882 Summary: attribute weak ignored for function templates Product: gcc Version: 4.8.2 Status: UNCONFIRMED Severity: normal Priority: P3 Component: c++ Assignee: unassigned at gcc dot gnu.org Reporter: msebor at gmail dot com In GCC 4.5 and later, and at -O and above, attribute weak (but not weak alias) is silently ignored on declarations of function templates and calls to specializations of such templates are inlined into their callers. The program below shows that GCC inlines calls to the function template specialization instantiated from the weak primary template baz, but emits a weak symbol for the weak alias foo<int>. GCC 4.2 honored the attribute and emitted a weak symbol for both foo<int> and baz<int>. Clang 3.4 also emits a weak symbol for both as expected. Disabling optimization changes the current behavior to match that of GCC 4.2.1 and Clang 3.4. The GCC documentation of attribute weak doesn't say whether or not the attribute is intended to have the same effect on specializations of function templates as it does on ordinary functions. If the current GCC behavior is intended, the documentation should be updated to make it clear when attribute weak is ignored, and GCC should be enhanced to issue a warning when the attribute is ignored. $ (set -x; cc=/auto/compiler-dev/msebor/contrib/cel-5.50/bin/g++; cat z.c && $cc -c -fpic -DFOO=1 -O -Wall -Wextra z.c && $cc -fpic -Wall -Wextra z.c z.o && ./a.out) + cc=/auto/compiler-dev/msebor/contrib/cel-5.50/bin/g++ + cat z.c template <class T> void foo (T); template <class T> void baz (T); void foobar (); #if FOO template <class T> void __attribute__ ((weak, alias ("bar"))) foo (T); static void bar (int) { } template <class T> void __attribute__ ((weak)) baz (T) { } void foobar () { foo (0), baz (0); } #else # include <stdio.h> template <> void foo (int) { puts (__func__); } template <> void baz (int) { puts (__func__); } int main (void) { foobar (); } #endif + /auto/compiler-dev/msebor/contrib/cel-5.50/bin/g++ -c -fpic -DFOO=1 -O -Wall -Wextra z.c + /auto/compiler-dev/msebor/contrib/cel-5.50/bin/g++ -fpic -Wall -Wextra z.c z.o + ./a.out foo<int>