A while back we evaluated signals 1 & 2 and came to the conclusion that the performance is to poor for it to be viable for our use. I have an idea which nets very close to the same invocation performance as std::vector< boost::function< > > ( an extra shared_ptr<> per ), with the caveat that ordering within a priority group is unspecified. Another downside compared to the implementation used now is that it needs extra bookkeeping per distinct priority group ( although from the docs for signals1 it would seem it does the same ). The gist of it is that we maintain a vector< > ( preferably we let the storage be parameterized ) in addition to a separate map for the priority groups. The map is keyed on the priority type, and the bookkeeping is: vector offset, group length & shift. Offset & length gives us the region in the vector. Shift tells us how much the group is shifted from its start offset since it was created. So each area is maintained as a sort of sliding window meets circular buffer. With this information we need touch no more than the either the last or first element ( depending on connect / disconnect ) of the groups with a lower priority than the one the element belongs to. Our vector contains a std::pair< function< signature >, shared_ptr< unsigned int
, the unsigned int is used both as a cookie for the signals::connection to make sure that the connection is still valid, as well as a shared offset in regards to the shift of the group. The arithmetic is very light weight and shouldn't pose a bottleneck.
Although I haven't implemented blocking & consistent disconnect / connect behavior during invocation yet I'm fairly certain they can be done in the following way: For blocking we can either use an additional bool which we branch on when invoking, or we can simply let the connection temporarily remove itself from the vector and insert itself once it's not blocking anymore, second solution probably preferred. Disconnect / connect during invocation is a trickier one. The way I'm thinking is to let the signal maintain the iterator as a member. When we disconnect / connect we can see if it equals end ( we're not invoking ), or if it doesn't then we know both the position as well as we're in the middle of an invocation. This way we can let the disconnect / connect logic modify the "cursor" in order to make sure that we get the desired behavior while not polluting our invocation loop. Pros: More cache friendly Very close to ideal case for invocation Cons: Using std::vector<> as a base naturally means we'll suffer from the usual growth caveats. However, if this matters the user could use a paged container with a decent growth strategy and come extremely close to the ideal case anyway. Thread safety within an invocation seems like it might be costly to implement, especially for vector<>. Slower connect / disconnect. All in all I think it's a big win for what I personally believe to be the most common usage of the signals library. I've attached a proof of concept along with a fairly primitive benchmark. There's a fragmented list version which can be enabled by a def, but it's naturally slow as hell to setup so it's disabled by default. The fragmented versions does not use exactly the same random sequence as the others, but hopefully it's somewhat fair. The vector variants somewhat "cheats" in that they reserve the space straight up, this is something which I personally feel should be exposed in the interface in someway anyway however. Here's some results: i5-2500k @ 3.3 ghz, decent mem etc: Using numConnections = 100000 numCalls = 100 numGroups = 200 rndSeed = 0 fragSpread = 10 Generating random sequence takes: 0.002 seconds Connecting to unfrag list:< function<> >: 0.008 seconds Connecting to vector< function<> >: 0.007 seconds Connecting to unfrag signals2< function<> >: 0.051 seconds Connecting to unfrag signals1< function<> >: 0.166 seconds Connecting to test::signals< function<> >: 1.38 seconds ... ... ... vector< function<> > invocation: 0.026 signals< function<> > unfragmented invocation: 1.632 signals2< function<> >unfragmented invocation: 1.404 list< function<> > unfragmented invocation: 0.03 test::signals< function<> > invocation: 0.023 signals< function<> > fragmented invocation: 9.97 signal2< function<> > fragmented invocation: 15.04 PS3 @ PPU ( Power PC ): Using numConnections = 100000 numCalls = 100 numGroups = 200 rndSeed = 0 fragSpread = 10 Generating random sequence takes: 0.001942 seconds Connecting to unfrag list:< function<> >: 0.060645 seconds Connecting to vector< function<> >: 0.034558 seconds Connecting to unfrag signals2< function<> >: 0.367024 seconds Connecting to unfrag signals1< function<> >: 2.02785 seconds Connecting to test::signals< function<> >: 10.0817 seconds ... ... ... vector< function<> > invocation: 0.695916 signals< function<> > unfragmented invocation: 5.91057 signals2< function<> >unfragmented invocation: 4.90188 list< function<> > unfragmented invocation: 1.03532 test::signals< function<> > invocation: 0.952999 signals< function<> > fragmented invocation: 33.4202 signal2< function<> > fragmented invocation: 47.0125