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From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Fast strcpy nitpicking
Message-ID: <1149@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Mon, 29-Sep-86 01:20:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1149
Posted: Mon Sep 29 01:20:54 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Sep-86 13:08:42 EDT
References: <101@hcx1.UUCP> <7363@sun.uucp> <696@mips.UUCP> <7447@sun.uucp> <7503@sun.uucp>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 23

In article <7503@sun.uucp>, guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris) writes:
>       The following, courtesy of John Gilmore and Vaughan Pratt, is what is
> actually used in the (3.2 version of) "strcpy", etc.:
> 
> 	moveq	#-1,d1		| maximum possible (16-bit) count
> hardloop:
> 	movb	FROM@+,TO@+	| copy...
> 	dbeq	d1,hardloop	| until we copy a null or the count is -1
> 	bne	hardloop	| if not-null, continue copying with count
> 				| freshly initialized to -1

Gee, Guy, something must have gotten lost in the translation.  I never
suggested that you needed a moveq there.  It works great no matter what
value happens to be in d1.  Unless d1 always has a small value at that point
in the code, you'll hit the end of the string before the dbra expires,
saving an instruction.  					:-)

PS:  My heart really goes out to the poor guy who wrote his own strcpy
and it broke.  Gee, he'll have to #define it to the one that came with 
the system.  Tears are streaming down my face.			;-)
-- 
John Gilmore  {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu   jgilmore@lll-crg.arpa
		     May the Source be with you!