Loops with 'loop forever' annotation inside strcmp are actually meant to loop forever. Falling through the end of the first loop may result in equal strings being compared unequal, e.g.: #include <string.h> int main(void) { char a[4096] __attribute__((aligned(4))); char b[4096] __attribute__((aligned(4))); memset(a, ' ', 258 * 8); memset(b, ' ', 258 * 8); a[255 * 8] = 0; a[256 * 8] = 'a'; b[255 * 8] = 0; b[256 * 8] = 'b'; return !(strcmp(a, b) == 0); } Falling through the end of the second loop may result in unequal strings being compared as equal, e.g.: #include <string.h> int main(void) { char a[4096] __attribute__((aligned(4))); char b[4096] __attribute__((aligned(4))); memset(a, ' ', 514 * 6); memset(b, ' ', 514 * 6); a[514 * 6 + 0] = 'a'; a[514 * 6 + 1] = 0; b[514 * 6 + 0] = 'b'; b[514 * 6 + 1] = 0; return !(strcmp(a, b) != 0); } Use 0 as a loop counter to make 2^32 - 1 iterations which is enough to cover all addressable memory. While at it drop useless nop at the end of the first loop and use a11 for all loop counters. Signed-off-by: Max Filippov &lt;jcmvbkbc(a)gmail.com&gt; --- Changes v1->v2: - wrong test case for the second loop, fixed. libc/string/xtensa/strcmp.S | 13 +++++-------- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) diff --git a/libc/string/xtensa/strcmp.S b/libc/string/xtensa/strcmp.S index 2dce590dbd42..a16da5da2e92 100644 --- a/libc/string/xtensa/strcmp.S +++ b/libc/string/xtensa/strcmp.S @@ -92,8 +92,8 @@ ENTRY (strcmp) /* (2 mod 4) alignment for loop instruction */ .Lunaligned: #if XCHAL_HAVE_LOOPS - _movi.n a8, 0 /* set up for the maximum loop count */ - loop a8, .Lretdiff /* loop forever (almost anyway) */ + movi a11, 0 /* set up for the maximum loop count */ + loop a11, .Lretdiff /* loop forever (almost anyway) */ #endif .Lnextbyte: l8ui a8, a2, 0 @@ -131,11 +131,10 @@ ENTRY (strcmp) #if XCHAL_HAVE_LOOPS .Laligned: .begin no-transform + movi a11, 0 l32r a4, .Lmask0 /* mask for byte 0 */ l32r a7, .Lmask4 - /* Loop forever. (a4 is more than than the maximum number - of iterations) */ - loop a4, .Laligned_done + loop a11, .Laligned_done /* Loop forever. */ /* First unrolled loop body. */ l32i a8, a2, 0 /* get word from s1 */ @@ -156,8 +155,6 @@ ENTRY (strcmp) addi a2, a2, 8 /* advance s1 pointer */ addi a3, a3, 8 /* advance s2 pointer */ .Laligned_done: - or a1, a1, a1 /* nop */ - .Lprobeq2: /* Adjust pointers to account for the loop unrolling. */ addi a2, a2, 4 @@ -198,7 +195,7 @@ ENTRY (strcmp) #if XCHAL_HAVE_LOOPS /* align (1 mod 4) */ - loop a4, .Leq /* loop forever (a4 is bigger than max iters) */ + loop a11, .Leq /* loop forever */ .end no-transform l32i a8, a2, 0 /* get word from s1 */ -- 2.1.4