Re: [avr-gcc-list] Why only registers 18-31?

[Jason Kyle]

At 20:39 21/12/2001 -0800, you wrote:
> I have noticed that avr-gcc uses registers 18-31 for most of its work, and 
> registers 0-1, but seems to ignore the other registers 2-17, though they 
> are available. The avr-gcc register usage FAQ seems to confirm this. I 
> also notice that avr-gcc-generated assembler code spends a little bit of 
> its time shuffling these registers around, which seems like it uses up a 
> few processor cycles,  which might be saved if it had the other registers 
> available to use.
>
> Is there some reason why avr-gcc only uses 18-31 for most of its work? Is 
> there a way to get avr-gcc to use the rest of the registers? Would that 
> even be a worthwhile thing to do or would it cause other problems? My 
> apologies if this is a dumb question; I'm fairly new to microcontrollers.

Certain opcodes can only use the upper 16 registers, for example a load 
immediate instruction (LDI Rd,K).  Have a look through the instruction set 
documentation from Atmel.  A while back someone made a big table of all the 
instructions which helps in understanding some of those why Atmel did this 
and that questions.

Cheers,

Jason Kyle

PS You post arrived as an attached pgp file, please post plain text without 
attachments.


> Thanks!
>
> - -ken