How they treat infinite loops that obviously never terminate (e.g. while (1)) is probably of greater interest. The first link gives this code: namespace { voi

How they treat infinite loops that obviously never terminate (e.g. while (1)) is probably of greater interest. The first link gives this code: namespace { void Panic() { while (1); } } // namespace extern "C" void kernel() { Panic(); } The clang++ really does optimize this away: https://godbolt.org/z/1Wf135918 https://godbolt.org/z/1Wf135918 The same thing happens when I let clang++ compile a C version as C++: https://godbolt.org/z/MxcGfWhej https://godbolt.org/z/MxcGfWhej However, if I compile it as C with clang, I get an infinite loop: https://godbolt.org/z/x63fo33Wa https://godbolt.org/z/x63fo33Wa