Greetings,

In Michael Lee's insightful and handy "Optimization of Computer
Programs in C" we are urged to "avoid referring to global or
static variables inside the tightest loops".

I also read (elsewhere) that access time to global/static and
automatic variables can be different on different hardware
(i.e., automatic variables cannot always be counted on being
faster).

What is then the justification for the above quote? Could it be
that the compiler might avoid using registers for global/static
variables? But then why could it not just copy the variable to a
register and restore its value after the loop's over (assuming,
of course, that there are no function calls or other side
effects in that tight loop)? I can see a problem with multi-
threading but is this not a special case that could be treated
separately by the compiler only when it arises?

[I have no problem following the advice, I'm just curious why it
is true...]

Thanks,
Christos
--

I don't think there is any.
Any decent modern C compiler distributes (factors) high-overhead
operations out of loops, for example caching nonlocal references.
It is best to write the program as clearly as possible and *then*
worry about micro-optimization tweaks *if* you find that they are
needed to meet performance goals.
--

:> Greetings,
:>
:> In Michael Lee's insightful and handy "Optimization of Computer
:> Programs in C" we are urged to "avoid referring to global or
:> static variables inside the tightest loops".
:>
:> ....

: Optimizations about public data verses automatic storage will be compiler
: and architecture specific.  To learn something about optimization, look here
: {C optimization}:
: http://www.ontek.com/mikey/optimization.html
:
: ...

Well, this was the site from where I quoted the excerpt above ;-)

Thanks for the other two recommendations, though!

Christos
--