Re: [boost] [boost::endian] Summary of discussion #1

Subject: Re: [boost] [boost::endian] Summary of discussion #1
From: Stewart, Robert (Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-06-02 13:25:56

Scott McMurray wrote:
> On 2 June 2010 11:37, Tomas Puverle wrote:
>
> > Having said that, as the typed interface ultimately relies
> > on copying of data,
>
> I think the summary here is that the typed approach requires copying
> while using members, and that the untyped approach may require
> swapping before and after use.

Not unreasonable, except the former doesn't imply less swapping than the latter as your phrasing suggests.

> Thinking about that, I believe I've come up with a situation in which
> the typed approach is more efficient than the swapping one.  Suppose
> you want to know the width and height of a BMP image on a big-endian
> machine.  If you have a way to get around aliasing issues, then
> memory-mapping the beginning of the file, type punning to the typed
> header type, and reading out the 2 values you care about is faster
> than swapping everything in the header.  (Yes, you could just swap the
> two fields you care about, for equivalent performance, but that's an
> operation at a different granularity.)

If all I wanted was two values, I wouldn't swap the entire header.  I would do exactly what you discounted parenthetically, so the typed approach is not more efficient, it's overkill in your example.

_____
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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