Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:27:30 +0200 (CEST) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, deeptech71@gmail.com Subject: Re: is strlen()'s read-4-bytes-ahead a standard? Message-ID: <201007160927.o6G9RU34020754@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <AANLkTim9ULyOAPigkpxLC_5Lrs1fN6abkYN1DDmTxSvz@mail.gmail.com>
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deeptech71@gmail.com <deeptech71@gmail.com> wrote: > Xin LI wrote: > > On 2010/07/15 15:38, deeptech71@gmail.com wrote: > > > Some C implementations use the read-4-bytes-ahead technique to speed > > > up strlen(). Does the C standard state anything about strlen() being > > > allowed to read past the terminating zero? > > > > It's not 4-bytes-ahead, but read a whole (aligned) word at one time. > > > > I think C standard does not dictate in this detail. > > OK, can anyone confirm this? When Xin LI states it, it doesn't need confirmation. ;-) You can look up for yourself, it's in section 7.21.6.3 (page 333) of ISO/IEC 9899:1999 a.k.a. "C99". It only states that "The strlen function computes the length of the string" and "The strlen function returns the number of characters that precede the terminating null character". Nothing more. > > But why? > > Just wondering. There's no reason not to read the string as aligned words. Because they're aligned, there's no risk to accidentally hit the next VM page after the end of the string. On the other hand, I don't think it is clear that doing this for strlen() would be a performance win in every situation. BTW, some languages (and also some string libraries for C) store the length separately for every string, so you don't have to iterate through the whole string to get its length. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd I suggested holding a "Python Object Oriented Programming Seminar", but the acronym was unpopular. -- Joseph Strout
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