EGCS: pointer to member functions.

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jun 22, 1999, Jason Merrill <jason@cygnus.com> wrote:

> I'm really don't think this change is a good idea; going through a thunk
> costs more than a simple test.  With branch prediction, the cost of the
> test is about zero, while the thunk adds an extra jump.

But the thunk would only be used for
pointer-to-virtual-member-function.  With the current code, users are
paying the price of an additional test and branch even when they only
use pointer-to-non-virtual-member-function.

Moreover, even if the test cost is close to zero, it would still have
to branch, and, given that the `thunk' I have in mind is as simple as
a `trampoline', I don't see how it could be less efficient than the
current approach.  Only if branches with good prediction were much
cheaper than a 100% certain jump; is this the case?

-- 
Alexandre Oliva http://www.dcc.unicamp.br/~oliva IC-Unicamp, Bra[sz]il
{oliva,Alexandre.Oliva}@dcc.unicamp.br  aoliva@{acm.org,computer.org}
oliva@{gnu.org,kaffe.org,{egcs,sourceware}.cygnus.com,samba.org}
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