How to tell gcc to not align function parameters on the stack?

Here's a way with a packed struct. I compiled it on an x86 with -m32 and got the desired offsets in the disassembly, so I think it should still work for an mc68000:

typedef struct {
    char arg1;
    short arg2;
    int arg3;
} __attribute__((__packed__)) fun_t;

int
fun(fun_t fun)
{

    return fun.arg1 + fun.arg2 + fun.arg3;
}

But, I think there's probably a still cleaner way. It would require knowing more about the other code that generates such a calling sequence. Do you have the source code for it?

Does the other code have to remain in asm? With the source, you could adjust the offsets in the asm code to be compatible with modern C ABI calling conventions.

I've been programming in C since 1981 and spent years doing mc68000 C and assembler code (for apps, kernel, device drivers), so I'm somewhat familiar with the problem space.


It's not a gcc 'fault', it is 68k architecture that requires stack to be always aligned on 2 bytes. So there is simply no way to break 2-byte alignment on the hardware stack.

but to work with the original program they need to have addresses 4(%sp), 5(%sp) and 7(%sp):

Accessing word or long values off the ODD memory address will immediately trigger alignment exception on 68000.


To get integral parameters passed using 2 byte alignment instead of 4 byte alignment, you can change the default int size to be 16 bit by -mshort. You need to replace all int in your code by long (if you want them to be 32 bit wide). The crude way to do that is to also pass -Dint=long to your compiler. Obviously, you will break ABI compatibility to object files compiled with -mno-short (which appears to be the default for gcc).