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From: meissner@dg_rtp.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: A comment on string instructions in the hardware
Message-ID: <1527@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Mar-87 17:48:29 EST
Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.1527
Posted: Mon Mar 30 17:48:29 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 1-Apr-87 02:10:49 EST
References: <6156@brl-adm.ARPA>
Reply-To: meissner@dg_rtp.UUCP (Michael Meissner)
Organization: Data General (Languages @ Research Triangle Park, NC.)
Lines: 22

In article <6156@brl-adm.ARPA> BRIAN%UOFT02.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu writes:
> 
>  I'm sure this will come as no surprise to  VAX  C  users,  but  I  have
> realized  substantial  savings  in  execution  time by replacing pattern
> matching and string copying routines with Macro-32  routines  that  take
> advantage  of  the  Vaxen's character instructions. In the global sense,
> the speed improvement is minimal, however, the improvements realized  in
> the  specific  case  of  pattern  matching appears to the user to make a
> search pattern execute in a fraction of the time that a vanilla C coding
> would use.

I don't doubt that you got a speed up, but check out the James Woods
version of egrep (volume 4 in mod.sources, and a newer faster version
promised real soon).  His version (in C, no asm) manages to beat versions
that use the VAX instructions in the general case.  The new version is
supposed to beat the assembly versions in all cases I think.  It runs
ten times faster than the standard System V egrep on my machine (no that
is not a typo!).
-- 
	Michael Meissner, Data General	Uucp: ...mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!meissner

It is 11pm, do you know what your sendmail and uucico are doing?