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Subject: Re: a question about speed difference that I do not understand

Author: Miguel A. Ballicora

Date: 11:29:18 12/05/01

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On December 05, 2001 at 13:36:21, Ed Schröder wrote:

>On December 05, 2001 at 13:04:49, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote:
>
>>On December 05, 2001 at 12:42:07, Ed Schröder wrote:
>>
>>>On December 05, 2001 at 06:46:07, Severi Salminen wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>#define color(target) (((info[target])>>3)&3)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>my data.c file includes
>>>>>>
>>>>>>int info[64];
>>>>>>int side;
>>>>>>int direction[64][64];
>>>>>>int kingsquare[2];
>>>>>>int pin[64];
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Perhaps the data types could be a reason for some microscopic effects. If the
>>>>>variable "side" is for instance of type "short", the compiler has to zero-extend
>>>>>the variable to word-size before indexing (because of the array access).
>>>>
>>>>But as you can see the variables are all ints. So no type conversions needed. I
>>>>believe there is just some stupid alignment thing happening or something and
>>>>that's why the program slows down a bit. I'd use side instead of color(sq) and
>>>>hopefully the speedup will show up later.
>>>>
>>>>Severi
>>>
>>>
>>>You could try to decrease the
>>>
>>>int direction[64][64];
>>>
>>>by one, thus:
>>>
>>>int direction[63][64];
>>>
>>>The result might be the compiler doesn't have to do an expensive multiply
>>>(*65) but is able to do a simple shift-left bits instruction (SHL 6) which
>>>shift left the bytes 6 times, thus a multiply by 64.
>>
>>I do not understand. Why would a compiler want to multiply by 65 in the first
>>place? Isn't 64 in both cases as determined by the second index?
>
>char xxx[0] defines 1 byte.
>char xxx[10] defines 11 bytes.

That migh be true in other languages (BASIC, Pascal) but it is certainly not
true in ANSI C (which is the language that Uri was using) and I doubt that is
true in any dialect of C since it is part of the core of C.
In fact, C programmers are sometimes proud that
char x[10]
initializes 10 bytes (from index 0 to 9).

see
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/q6.2.html

Regards,
Miguel



>
>etc.
>
>Ed
>
>
>
>>Regards,
>>Miguel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>Ed



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