gcc and compiling speed

[Gabriel Dos Reis]

Theo de Raadt <deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org> writes:

| > > > Marc,
| > > > Now I know you have been asked before every time you bring up on the
| > > > GCC's mailing list about a set of preprocessed source for openbsd so
| > > > that the speed of GCC will improve.
| > > 
| > > How will this improve the speed of gcc?
| > > 
| > > Are pre-processed headers the way that gcc3 is going to recover
| > > the speed that it has lost?
| > 
| > I found pretty Andrew's request very confusingly worded (sorry
| > Andrew!), so let me rephrase it: preprocessed (-E, -save-temps) output
| > for specific test cases that have slowed down.  This is what people ask
| > Marc for every time he reports slowdown numbers, and so far he hasn't
| > provided any.
| 
| Is include file parsing a time critical component of gcc?

I believe the reason people are asking for a preprocessed file is that
they wanted to have a real translation unit (i.e. minimally
self-contained) testcase they can feed their compilers with while trying
to fix the speed regression.  If you happen to have a file that is
representative enough, that would help them. 

(I assumed you're not suggesting they download the entire BSD
kernel) 

-- Gaby