> What I wish GCC and Clang would do instead, is formally document the magic ANSI C89 incantations that trigger the optimization, e.g. `#define ROL(x, n) (((x) > (64 - (n))))`. That way we can have clean portable code with less #ifdef hell along with assurances it'll go fast when -O is passed.

Well they don’t commit to that happening, so they want to provide you with an alternative.