Re: C++ PATCH: PR 15815

[Geoff Keating <geoffk at geoffk dot org>]

On 09/06/2004, at 11:06 AM, Mark Mitchell wrote:

> Geoff Keating wrote:
>
> > I can think of one case.  Suppose you're writing a shared library, and
> > you want to make as much shared as possible.  It would be nice to be
> > able to force a single out-of-line copy of the inline function, so
> > that it doesn't get put in every application that uses the library.
>
> In that case, you probably didn't really want it to be inline.  If you 
> really did want it to be inline with the shared object, but not in 
> other parts of your application, then you need to create two different 
> copies of the function -- an inline one and a non-inline one, which 
> calls the inline version.  Or, you can make the inline body visible 
> only within the shared library, using macros.

No, no.  You want it to be inlined everywhere.  However, there are 
cases where it can't be inline (someone takes an address, -O0, 
whatever).  In those cases, you'd like them to use one copy in the 
shared library, not a copy in each application.  This is actually worse 
when the routine *is* a good candidate for inlining, because that's 
when it's least likely that the routine will end up in the shared 
library anyway.