Function Basics (GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) Internals)

#### 11.8.1 Function Basics ¶

A function has four core parts: the name, the parameters, the result, and the body. The following macros and functions access these parts of a `FUNCTION_DECL` as well as other basic features:

`DECL_NAME` ¶

  This macro returns the unqualified name of the function, as an `IDENTIFIER_NODE`. For an instantiation of a function template, the `DECL_NAME` is the unqualified name of the template, not something like `f<int>`. The value of `DECL_NAME` is undefined when used on a constructor, destructor, overloaded operator, or type-conversion operator, or any function that is implicitly generated by the compiler. See below for macros that can be used to distinguish these cases.

`DECL_ASSEMBLER_NAME` ¶

  This macro returns the mangled name of the function, also an `IDENTIFIER_NODE`. This name does not contain leading underscores on systems that prefix all identifiers with underscores. The mangled name is computed in the same way on all platforms; if special processing is required to deal with the object file format used on a particular platform, it is the responsibility of the back end to perform those modifications. (Of course, the back end should not modify `DECL_ASSEMBLER_NAME` itself.)

  Using `DECL_ASSEMBLER_NAME` will cause additional memory to be allocated (for the mangled name of the entity) so it should be used only when emitting assembly code. It should not be used within the optimizers to determine whether or not two declarations are the same, even though some of the existing optimizers do use it in that way. These uses will be removed over time.

`DECL_ARGUMENTS` ¶

  This macro returns the `PARM_DECL` for the first argument to the function. Subsequent `PARM_DECL` nodes can be obtained by following the `TREE_CHAIN` links.

`DECL_RESULT` ¶

  This macro returns the `RESULT_DECL` for the function.

`DECL_SAVED_TREE` ¶

  This macro returns the complete body of the function.

`TREE_TYPE` ¶

  This macro returns the `FUNCTION_TYPE` or `METHOD_TYPE` for the function.

`DECL_INITIAL` ¶

  A function that has a definition in the current translation unit will have a non-`NULL` `DECL_INITIAL`. However, back ends should not make use of the particular value given by `DECL_INITIAL`.

  It should contain a tree of `BLOCK` nodes that mirrors the scopes that variables are bound in the function. Each block contains a list of decls declared in a basic block, a pointer to a chain of blocks at the next lower scope level, then a pointer to the next block at the same level and a backpointer to the parent `BLOCK` or `FUNCTION_DECL`. So given a function as follows:

      void foo()
      {
        int a;
        {
          int b;
        }
        int c;
      }

  you would get the following:

      tree foo = FUNCTION_DECL;
      tree decl_a = VAR_DECL;
      tree decl_b = VAR_DECL;
      tree decl_c = VAR_DECL;
      tree block_a = BLOCK;
      tree block_b = BLOCK;
      tree block_c = BLOCK;
      BLOCK_VARS(block_a) = decl_a;
      BLOCK_SUBBLOCKS(block_a) = block_b;
      BLOCK_CHAIN(block_a) = block_c;
      BLOCK_SUPERCONTEXT(block_a) = foo;
      BLOCK_VARS(block_b) = decl_b;
      BLOCK_SUPERCONTEXT(block_b) = block_a;
      BLOCK_VARS(block_c) = decl_c;
      BLOCK_SUPERCONTEXT(block_c) = foo;
      DECL_INITIAL(foo) = block_a;