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A Look into Return Value Optimization of C++

Lu Pan

Lu Pan

• 1 min read

I am learning C++ and ran into a "bizarre" issue, which was because Return Value Optimization (RVO) took place. In the spirit of learning C++, let's take a look into what's happening here.

This is the code we will be looking at.

struct Foo {
  Foo() {
    cout << "foo constructed" << endl;
  }
  Foo(const Foo&) {
    cout << "foo copied" << endl;
  }
  ~Foo() {
    cout << "foo destructed" << endl;
  }
};

Foo f() {
  Foo t;
  return t;
}

int main() {
  Foo g = f();
  return 0;
}

Foo is very simple. It prints on construction, copy and destruction.

See it in action

Now if you run it (compile with no special flags). You will get

foo constructed
foo destructed

You can see that there was only one Foo instance ever constructed and never copied. If you turn copy elision off, by doing g++ -fno-elide-constructors, you will get

foo constructed
foo copied
foo destructed
foo copied
foo destructed
foo destructed

Dig into the assembly

How did the compiler get rid of the copies?
In order to really see what's happening, we need to look at the assembly. You can get the complete assembly from https://godbolt.org/.

With RVO

f():
  pushq %rbp
  movq %rsp, %rbp
  subq $16, %rsp
  movq %rdi, -8(%rbp)      // I guess it needs to store %rdi at %rbp-8 as `call` might change both %rax and %rdi
  movq -8(%rbp), %rax
  movq %rax, %rdi
  call Foo::Foo()         // construct the obj at %rdi
  nop
  movq -8(%rbp), %rax     // return the original %rdi
  leave
  ret
main:
  pushq %rbp
  movq %rsp, %rbp
  pushq %rbx
  subq $24, %rsp
  leaq -17(%rbp), %rax
  movq %rax, %rdi          // %rdi stores the address
  call f()
  movl $0, %ebx
  leaq -17(%rbp), %rax
  movq %rax, %rdi
  call Foo::~Foo()         // destruct the only obj created
  movl %ebx, %eax
  addq $24, %rsp
  popq %rbx
  popq %rbp
  ret

The gist is that the callee construct an object in caller's stack frame, by reading %rdi for the address. In this way, no copy is needed.

The one without RVO is much longer and less interesting.

gdb is very useful in understanding exactly what each assembly instruction is doing. Here are a few useful commands:

  • disassemble to show the assembly
  • nexti to execute one line
  • x/xg to exam the memory address, which can check registers as well
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