Re: [Boost-users] shared_ptr as reference argument

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] shared_ptr as reference argument
From: Steven Watanabe (watanabesj_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-03-20 12:00:07

AMDG

Ovanes Markarian wrote:
> I know that the second snippet is illegal in C++, but your statement was
> that const is only a part of type system and has no impact on optimization,
> I just answered you with my doubts, and made a first obvious example with
> NRVO, which highly depends on const.
>   

This is a case of programmer optimization rather than compiler 
optimization, though.

> const might also involve some optimizations, e.g. in multi-threaded context.
> Let's imagine a value being passed to a function by const reference. This
> function starts 2 or more threads and passes the value to them as reference
> to a const object as well. What happens in this context? As long it is not
> volatile it might be cached in a register, but I think that if the value is
> const, compiler has stronger assumption, that this value is good enough to
> be cached for all threads...
>   

If you have a reference to const, the compiler cannot make
any assumptions about whether it is modified or not, because
of const_cast.  Objects declared const are another matter,
because it is undefined behavior to modify them.

In Christ,
Steven Watanabe