Author: Omid David Tabibi
Date: 07:29:09 09/26/03
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On September 26, 2003 at 10:23:19, Koundinya Veluri wrote: >On September 26, 2003 at 09:15:31, Omid David Tabibi wrote: > >>But isn't a word sized variable preferable to a 1 byte variable for performance? >> >>The reason why int doesn't have a specific size is that on each system int was >>meant to be the fastest type of variable, word sized. That's why using int is >>better than char even for small numbers (except when having large arrays where >>int would waste too much cache). For the same reason I think typedef int BOOL >>would be better than bool when having only speed in mind. >> >>P.S. It seems that on 64 bit systems sizeof(int) will still be 4, not word >>sized. Wouldn't an 8 byte int be faster than a 4 byte one on a 64 bit system?! >> > >IMO a good compiler should do equally well for both since both int and char fit >into one register. I don't see how int can perform better than char. I haven't >noticed a difference in any of my programs, excluding the cases where cache is a >factor, when char would perform better. Because of this I actually prefer using >char instead of int where possible, and also bool instead of BOOL. http://www.azillionmonkeys.com/qed/optimize.html "The original reason int was put into the C language was so that the fastest data type on each platform remained abstracted away from the programmer himself. On modern 32 and 64 bit platforms, small data types like chars and shorts actually incur extra overhead when converting to and from the default machine word sized data type." > >Koundinya
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