Henrik Grubbstr?m (Lysator) @ Pike (-) developers forum wrote:
>>Is there a reason why quick_add_integer_constant takes a char* and
>>a length, instead of a (much quicker and cleaner) struct pike_string*
>>which would enable it to work more efficiently in collaboration with
>>MK_STRING() ?
>The quick* functions in program.c are typically called via the
>corresponding ADD_*() macros (in this case ADD_INT_CONSTANT()).
>The "quick" in the name has mostly to do with the string-lengths being
>calculated statically, and probably ought to have been "simple", since
>the functions are intended to be easy to use from C-code.
Yes, well, figured that out, eventually; however, these are all one-time
calls, for fairly short strings as identifiers. I'm having a hard time
justifying why someone insisted on creating the quick_ versions just
to be able to use make_shared_binary_string instead of make_shared_string.
It will save one pass over the string to find the trailing \0, yes, but
since it's all initialisation, and the string in most cases fits in the cache
(and this is true now, and would have been equally true 20 years ago), there
is close to no speed benefit.
>If you already have a struct pike_string, you would probably want to
>call add_constant() directly rather than {quick_,}add_integer_constant().
Well, I have a proposed cleanup which keeps the current binary
interface intact.
--
Stephen.
"There are 10 types of people in the world.
Those who understand binary and those who do not."
