Is there a compiler hint for GCC to force branch prediction to always go a certain way?

Question

For the Intel architectures, is there a way to instruct the GCC compiler to generate code that always forces branch prediction a particular way in my code? Does the Intel hardware even support this? What about other compilers or hardwares?

I would use this in C++ code where I know the case I wish to run fast and do not care about the slow down when the other branch needs to be taken even when it has recently taken that branch.

for (;;) {
  if (normal) { // How to tell compiler to always branch predict true value?
    doSomethingNormal();
  } else {
    exceptionalCase();
  }
}

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As a follow on question for Evdzhan Mustafa, can the hint just specify a hint for the first time the processor encounters the instruction, all subsequent branch prediction, functioning normally?

Answer 1

As of C++20 the likely and unlikely attributes should be standardized and are already supported in g++9. So as discussed here, you can write

if (a > b) {
  /* code you expect to run often */
  [[likely]] /* last statement here */
}

e.g. in the following code the else block gets inlined thanks to the [[unlikely]] in the if block

int oftendone( int a, int b );
int rarelydone( int a, int b );
int finaltrafo( int );

int divides( int number, int prime ) {
  int almostreturnvalue;
  if ( ( number % prime ) == 0 ) {
    auto k                         = rarelydone( number, prime );
    auto l                         = rarelydone( number, k );
    [[unlikely]] almostreturnvalue = rarelydone( k, l );
  } else {
    auto a            = oftendone( number, prime );
    almostreturnvalue = oftendone( a, a );
  }
  return finaltrafo( almostreturnvalue );
}

godbolt link comparing the presence/absence of the attribute