Re: [boost] [xint] Third release is ready, requesting preliminary review

Subject: Re: [boost] [xint] Third release is ready, requesting preliminary review
From: Stewart, Robert (Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-05-05 13:03:01

Steven Watanabe wrote:
> Stewart, Robert wrote:
> > Steven Watanabe wrote:
> >> Stewart, Robert wrote:
> >>
> >>> Sure, but that's not portable, which is the goal within Boost.
> >>>
> >> What do you mean by portable?  You have no guarantee
> >> that the compiler does it?  You don't have any guarantees
> >> anyway.  The compiler is free to ignore inline.
> >
> > Ah, but that's portable behavior by definition.
> >
> > As written, the functions in question would only be inlined
> > by a very few platforms.  Marked inline in a header, it is
> > the unlikely compiler that wouldn't inline those functions in
> > an optimized build.
>
> As far as I am concerned, this has nothing to do with portability
> as a goal for Boost.  We're talking about optimizations that don't
> affect the observable behavior of any program.  The compiler
> is free to do whatever it darn well pleases, regardless of whether
> you say inline or not.  msvc has supported link time code generation
> for a while, and gcc now has -flto.

You've dragged this far afield.  The original contention was that functions in a .cpp would be inlined.  I countered that as not being portable, which is to say that it will only work on select platforms and only when configured to do so.  The only way to have any chance of inlining for the widest range of platforms and configurations possible is to put the function definitions in a header and mark them inline if they aren't in the class definition.  That won't force any compiler to inline them, but that gives the best chance for it.  I hardly think that's controversial.

_____
Rob Stewart                           robert.stewart_at_[hidden]
Software Engineer, Core Software      using std::disclaimer;
Susquehanna International Group, LLP  http://www.sig.com

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