How do I stop gcc from loading data into registers when that's not needed?

[Paul Koning]

Gents,

In some targets, like pdp11 and vax, most instructions can reference data in 
memory directly.

So when I have "if (x < y) ..." I would expect something like this:

        cmpw  x, y
        bgeq  1f
        ...

What I actually see, with -O2 and/or -Os, is:

        movw  x, r0
        movw  y, r1
        cmpw  r0, r1
        bgeq  1f
        ...

which is both longer and slower.  I can't tell why this happens, or how to stop 
it.  The machine description has "general_operand" so it doesn't seem to be the 
place that forces things into registers.

        paul