RISC-V memcpy routine uses misaligned loads and stores
Open
Nobody has claimed this yet.
C-bug
O-riscv
S-needs-repro
T-libs
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 119k
- Forks
- 16.1k
- PR merge metrics
- PR metrics pending
Description
I tried this code:
// Using the riscv64gc-unknown-none-elf target.
// Should be reproduced by:
#[inline(never)]
fn do_copy(len: usize) {
// len is 16.
core::ptr::copy_nonoverlapping(0x237c0 as *const u8, 0x43adc as *mut u8, len);
}
I expected to see this happen: Byte copy should succeed without missing bytes. A byte copy loop using write_volatile works fine.
Instead, this happened:
Debugging output over UART (with annotations)
stream read 16 [87, 79, 79, 70, 66, 79, 79, 84, 16, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0] (.data)
ptrs: 0x237c0 (.data) 0x43adc (stack, 4-byte aligned)
head (stack): [87, 79, 79, 70, 0, 0, 0, 0, 16, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0]
Meta
rustc --version --verbose:
rustc 1.91.0-nightly (2e2642e64 2025-08-16)
binary: rustc
commit-hash: 2e2642e641a941f0a1400c7827fd89aa86fef8f4
commit-date: 2025-08-16
host: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
release: 1.91.0-nightly
LLVM version: 21.1.0
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reproducing the provided copy_nonoverlapping example for riscv64gc-unknown-none-elf and inspect the generated RISC-V behavior for the misaligned destination. Compare it with the working write_volatile byte loop; done means the 16-byte copy preserves every byte at the shown addresses.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- compilers, embedded-iot
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 42/100