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Re: Faster compilation speed
Jamie Lokier <egcs@tantalophile.demon.co.uk> writes:
>David S. Miller wrote:
>> You can easily use much less than a full word. Foundation on
>> OpenStep/Mach 4.2 started storing partial ref counts in whatever spare
>> bits were available in each object.
>>
>> We don't have any spare bits, we have 32 bits used for RTX state then
>> the next object is a pointer. So whatever size counter we use will
>> eat at a minimum a word's worth of space to get the pointers aligned
>> up properly.
>
>Did I see "pointers" and "aligned" there?
>
>You have 2 spare bits per pointer, man, open your eyes! :-)
Note the :-) Given the amount of
pointer use having to mask every pointer to clear out "spare bits"
would be a disaster.
--
Nick Ing-Simmons
http://www.ni-s.u-net.com/