11.7.2 Blocks

Block scopes and the variables they declare in GENERIC are expressed using the BIND_EXPR code, which in previous versions of GCC was primarily used for the C statement-expression extension.

Variables in a block are collected into BIND_EXPR_VARS in declaration order through their TREE_CHAIN field. Any runtime initialization is moved out of DECL_INITIAL and into a statement in the controlled block. When gimplifying from C or C++, this initialization replaces the DECL_STMT. These variables will never require cleanups. The scope of these variables is just the body

Variable-length arrays (VLAs) complicate this process, as their size often refers to variables initialized earlier in the block and their initialization involves an explicit stack allocation. To handle this, we add an indirection and replace them with a pointer to stack space allocated by means of alloca. In most cases, we also arrange for this space to be reclaimed when the enclosing BIND_EXPR is exited, the exception to this being when there is an explicit call to alloca in the source code, in which case the stack is left depressed on exit of the BIND_EXPR.

A C++ program will usually contain more BIND_EXPRs than there are syntactic blocks in the source code, since several C++ constructs have implicit scopes associated with them. On the other hand, although the C++ front end uses pseudo-scopes to handle cleanups for objects with destructors, these don’t translate into the GIMPLE form; multiple declarations at the same level use the same BIND_EXPR.