Re: [avr-gcc-list] efficiency of assigning bits

[E. Weddington]

David Willmore wrote:

> Hello, all.  I'm a bit confused by many of the comments in this
> thread.  Where is there a guarentee that the two bits will be
> set at the same time in any of the shown examples?
>
> If I understand correctly, any of:
>
> PORTD &= ~_BV(PD1);
> PORTD &= ~_BV(PD4);
>
> or
>
> PORTD &= ~(_BV(PD1) | _BV(PD4));
>
> or other variants are completely the same in what kind of code
> they may generate when it gets down to machine language, no?
>
> There is no implied simultinaity in any of these statements--
> all C offers you is that the user code won't be able to tell
> the difference--unless PORTD is defined as a volatile.  Which
> may be the default and would explain my confusion.
>
> Is that the critical bit that I'm missing?
>  
Yes. PORTD and all of the AVR registers are defined as volatile. That is 
why you would want to combine the statements if you want simultaneous 
changing of the state of those two pins. If you don't care, then you're 
free to have them as two statements, but it would also be inefficient in 
terms of code space. Your choice.