Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!dptg!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pilchuck!dataio!bright
From: bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Inline constructor problem
Message-ID: <2114@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Date: 30 Aug 89 18:42:53 GMT
References: <1990010@hpctdlk.HP.COM>
Reply-To: bright@dataio.Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Organization: Data I/O Corporation; Redmond, WA
Lines: 19

In article <1990010@hpctdlk.HP.COM> blv@hpctdlk.HP.COM (Bob Vixie) writes:
>I have a problem with inline constructors.  We are building a large
>library of classes that make up our system.

If you make your constructors global functions instead of inline, I suspect
you'll discover a major decrease in the size of your program with practically
no performance penalty.

C++ has a problem in that its syntax makes it easier to make a member function
inline than not, so many programmers go overboard with inlines. Some
general rules for if a function should be inline or not:
	1. Constructors should not be inline. The reason is that even though
	   the body of the ctor looks trivial, the compiler may insert a
	   bunch of hidden stuff (such as base class constructor calls) that
	   can cause a surprising amount of bloat. Grouping all the ctors
	   into one module also portably solves the problem of multiple vtbls
	   without kludges like +e0 and +e1.
	2. Member functions should be inline if they consist of one
	   expression, otherwise they should be global.