Re: How to pass STL containers (say a vector) ?

From:
"peter koch" <peter.koch.larsen@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
19 May 2006 14:26:01 -0700
Message-ID:
<1148073961.827877.259470@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
Marek Vondrak skrev:

I don't think that the compiler that comes with MS VisualStudio 2003
does RVO, even for simple cases.


It surely does. VC 6.0 also did if I do not remember wrong. Remember
that not all compiles will result in RVO.... you have to enable at
least some optimisations.


I dare not to agree (sorry for being offtopic). Maybe this all depends on

Happily this group is not moderated ;-)

the definition of what RVO is but the Microsoft compilers always behaved
like this (at least MSVC6, 7 and 7.1). Either the whole function is inlined
and the temporary is eventually eliminated (this is not a RVO) or a function
call is made and the temporary is not eliminated. This is demonstrated by
the following dumb test case:

-- test.cpp --

[snipped]
I must admit I had some trouble following your assembly listing (and
also your program - why writing the code inside a class and why
operator+??). In particular i failed to see where operator+ (which must
be the interesting function) did copy the result back and where the
local copy got destroyed. Instead, I made my own program ;-). :

#include <iostream>

struct test
{
    test();
    test(test const& rhs);
    int i;
};

test::test() { std::cout << "test::test\n";}

test::test(test const& rhs) { std::cout << "test::test(test const&
rhs)\n";}

test func()
{
    test t;
    return t;
}

test func2(test const& tf)
{
    test t(tf);
    return t;
}

int main()
{
    test t1(func());
    test t2(func2(t1));
}

The program prints
"test::test
test::test(test const& rhs)"
which is exactly what you'd expect with RVO. Assembly for the two
test-functions:

PUBLIC ?func@@YA?AUtest@@XZ ; func
; Function compile flags: /Ogtpy
; COMDAT ?func@@YA?AUtest@@XZ
_TEXT SEGMENT
___$ReturnUdt$ = 8 ; size = 4
?func@@YA?AUtest@@XZ PROC ; func, COMDAT

; 15 : {

  00000 56 push esi

; 16 : test t;

  00001 8b 74 24 08 mov esi, DWORD PTR ___$ReturnUdt$[esp]
  00005 8b ce mov ecx, esi
  00007 e8 00 00 00 00 call ??0test@@QAE@XZ ; test::test

; 17 : return t;

  0000c 8b c6 mov eax, esi
  0000e 5e pop esi

; 18 : }

  0000f c3 ret 0
?func@@YA?AUtest@@XZ ENDP ; func
_TEXT ENDS
PUBLIC ?func2@@YA?AUtest@@ABU1@@Z ; func2
; Function compile flags: /Ogtpy
; COMDAT ?func2@@YA?AUtest@@ABU1@@Z
_TEXT SEGMENT
___$ReturnUdt$ = 8 ; size = 4
_tf$ = 12 ; size = 4
?func2@@YA?AUtest@@ABU1@@Z PROC ; func2, COMDAT

; 23 : test t(tf);

  00000 8b 44 24 08 mov eax, DWORD PTR _tf$[esp-4]
  00004 56 push esi
  00005 8b 74 24 08 mov esi, DWORD PTR ___$ReturnUdt$[esp]
  00009 50 push eax
  0000a 8b ce mov ecx, esi
  0000c e8 00 00 00 00 call ??0test@@QAE@ABU0@@Z ; test::test

; 24 : return t;

  00011 8b c6 mov eax, esi
  00013 5e pop esi

; 25 : }

which verifies that RVO indeed is in effect. This is for Microsoft
Visual Studio 2005
Version 8.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200) as I do not have the older
Visual C++ compilers at home, but you can copy/paste and easily verify
my code.

/Peter

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