30.1.3 Optimization Pragmas

These pragmas enable a particular optimization for specific function definitions. The settings take effect at the end of a function definition, so the clean place to use these pragmas is between function definitions.

#pragma GCC optimize optimization

_Pragma ("GCC optimize optimization")

These pragmas enable the optimization optimization for the following functions. For example,

_Pragma ("GCC optimize -fforward-propagate")

says to apply the ‘forward-propagate’ optimization to all following function definitions. Specifying optimizations for individual functions, rather than for the entire program, is rare but can be useful for getting around a bug in the compiler.

If optimization does not correspond to a defined optimization option, the pragma is erroneous. To turn off an optimization, use the corresponding ‘-fno-’ option, such as ‘-fno-forward-propagate’.

#pragma GCC target optimizations

_Pragma ("GCC target optimizations")

The pragma ‘GCC target’ is similar to ‘GCC optimize’ but is used for platform-specific optimizations. Thus,

_Pragma ("GCC target popcnt")

activates the optimization ‘popcnt’ for all following function definitions. This optimization is supported on a few common targets but not on others.

#pragma GCC push_options

_Pragma ("GCC push_options")

The ‘push_options’ pragma saves on a stack the current settings specified with the ‘target’ and ‘optimize’ pragmas.

#pragma GCC pop_options

_Pragma ("GCC pop_options")

The ‘pop_options’ pragma pops saved settings from that stack.

Here’s an example of using this stack.

_Pragma ("GCC push_options")
_Pragma ("GCC optimize forward-propagate")

/* Functions to compile
   with the forward-propagate optimization. */

_Pragma ("GCC pop_options")
/* Ends enablement of forward-propagate. */

#pragma GCC reset_options

_Pragma ("GCC reset_options")

Clears all pragma-defined ‘target’ and ‘optimize’ optimization settings.