http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=57482
--- Comment #3 from Christophe <christophe.beausoleil at sogeti dot com> --- > 2) -f[no-]short-enums is not an optimization option; Hum, I do not really agree although it is strongly related to ABI, no doubt. Anyway, it is a very special option as I can see in opts.c : /* Set this to a special "uninitialized" value. The actual default is set after target options have been processed. */ opts->x_flag_short_enums = 2; A few specific options are also treated here, but it seems to me that -fshort-enum is the only optimization option concerned. Am I wrong ? Could it be the only option which is not reported correctly by --help=optimizers ? Reading target.def is really instructive, but I still do not understand (yet) how the optimizations list is built, and how options are overwritten... All this is very confusing.