Re: Inline recursive functions?

From:

Mark P <usenet@fall2005REMOVE.fastmailCAPS.fm>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.c++

Date:

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:54:17 GMT

Message-ID:

<ZcwZh.18226$Kd3.4615@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net>

Digital Puer wrote:

I got this on an interview: Is it possible to write inline recursive
functions?

I said yes, but there is no guarantee that the compiler will
definitely
inline your code even if you write "inline". Is this a right answer?
It seems to be independent of whether or not the function is
recursive.

I'd say that's correct insofar as the C++ language is concerned. It's
syntactically permitted to declare the function inline, and the compiler
is likewise free to ignore this suggestion.

In practice, I suspect it's unlikely that a compiler would inline a
recursive function call, but it's not impossible. One could even
imagine "hybrid" situations where, for example, the compiler inlines the
initial function call but not any of the subsequent recursive calls.

Another question: how can you tell if the compiler has inlined your
code when you have used "inline"? Compare the size of the binary?

It's all platform dependent here. You could look at the binary, you
could look at the object file, you might find this information from a
debugger, and so on.