Re: [boost] [Review] Boost.Endian mini-review

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 8:21 AM, Beman Dawes wrote:

On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 2:25 AM, Jason Newton wrote:

...

I think the only thing that I have no interest in using - a kind way of saying its probably unneeded bloat IMO is the arithmetic types. I prefer native types and using conversion functions. But maybe they could improve my code - its something I toss back and forth a little and haven't attempted embracing.

Because even the endian buffer and arithmetic types that appear most expensive generate only short sequences of code, the optimizing compilers often generate exactly the same instructions regardless of endian approach. On Intel machines, that often distills down to a single bswap instruction since the value is already in a register.

That isn't always true, so you do need to measure performance of various approaches in the context of your actual application. But if use of the buffer or arithmetic types would otherwise improve your code, please don't reject them without actually testing performance first.

Allow me to clarify: I meant code bloat, not speed. -Jason