In GCC-style extended inline asm, is it possible to output a "virtualized" boolean value, e.g. the carry flag?

Question

If I have the following C++ code to compare two 128-bit unsigned integers, with inline amd-64 asm:

struct uint128_t {
    uint64_t lo, hi;
};
inline bool operator< (const uint128_t &a, const uint128_t &b)
{
    uint64_t temp;
    bool result;
    __asm__(
        "cmpq %3, %2;"
        "sbbq %4, %1;"
        "setc %0;"
        : // outputs:
        /*0*/"=r,1,2"(result),
        /*1*/"=r,r,r"(temp)
        : // inputs:
        /*2*/"r,r,r"(a.lo),
        /*3*/"emr,emr,emr"(b.lo),
        /*4*/"emr,emr,emr"(b.hi),
        "1"(a.hi));
    return result;
}

Then it will be inlined quite efficiently, but with one flaw. The return value is done through the "interface" of a general register with a value of 0 or 1. This adds two or three unnecessary extra instructions and detracts from a compare operation that would otherwise be fully optimized. The generated code will look something like this:

    mov    r10, [r14]
    mov    r11, [r14+8]
    cmp    r10, [r15]
    sbb    r11, [r15+8]
    setc   al
    movzx  eax, al
    test   eax, eax
    jnz    is_lessthan

If I use "sbb %0,%0" with an "int" return value instead of "setc %0" with a "bool" return value, there's still two extra instructions:

    mov    r10, [r14]
    mov    r11, [r14+8]
    cmp    r10, [r15]
    sbb    r11, [r15+8]
    sbb    eax, eax
    test   eax, eax
    jnz    is_lessthan

What I want is this:

    mov    r10, [r14]
    mov    r11, [r14+8]
    cmp    r10, [r15]
    sbb    r11, [r15+8]
    jc     is_lessthan

GCC extended inline asm is wonderful, otherwise. But I want it to be just as good as an intrinsic function would be, in every way. I want to be able to directly return a boolean value in the form of the state of a CPU flag or flags, without having to "render" it into a general register.

Is this possible, or would GCC (and the Intel C++ compiler, which also allows this form of inline asm to be used) have to be modified or even refactored to make it possible?

Also, while I'm at it — is there any other way my formulation of the compare operator could be improved?

Answer 1

I don't know a way to do this. You may or may not consider this an improvement:

inline bool operator< (const uint128_t &a, const uint128_t &b)
{
    register uint64_t temp = a.hi;
    __asm__(
        "cmpq %2, %1;"
        "sbbq 0, %0;"
        : // outputs:
        /*0*/"=r"(temp)
        : // inputs:
        /*1*/"r"(a.lo),
        /*2*/"mr"(b.lo),
        "0"(temp));

    return temp < b.hi;
}

It produces something like:

mov    rdx, [r14]
mov    rax, [r14+8]
cmp    rdx, [r15]
sbb    rax, 0
cmp    rax, [r15+8]
jc is_lessthan