Re: Overhead of type casting when using GObject system

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen <mikkel kamstrup gmail com>]

On 10 February 2013 15:22, Emmanuele Bassi <ebassi gmail com> wrote:

On 10 February 2013 13:57, Ross Lagerwall <rosslagerwall gmail com> wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 11:08:31AM +0000, Emmanuele Bassi wrote:
>> disabling cast checks is usually the result of performance profiling,
>> tho, so it should only be used if you have profiled your application
>> code and verified that type casting is high on the profiles; there are
>> also various ways to avoid that, by using ancillary values and the
>> correct type to minimize casting, before a blanket type cast check
>> disable.
>>
>
> What are ancillary values, and how can you use them to minimize casting?

if you are calling multiple functions of the same type, e.g.

  gtk_widget_set_foo (GTK_WIDGET (w), foo);
  gtk_widget_set_bar (GTK_WIDGET (w), bar);
  gtk_widget_set_baz (GTK_WIDGET (w), baz);

instead of using a checked cast for each call, use an ancillary
variable and cast once:

  GtkWidget *tmp = GTK_WIDGET (w);
  gtk_widget_set_foo (tmp, foo);
  gtk_widget_set_bar (tmp, bar);
  gtk_widget_set_baz (tmp, baz);

there's also the option of using the most common type when calling
functions or inside signal handlers, to minimize type checks; if you
have a function that calls method of the same type, use that type as
part of the arguments, instead of doing a cast (upwards or downwards).

In support of Emmanuele's reasoning - I've seen a few places where dynamic type checking did induce a significant cost. Fx. a tight loop with many iterations. In all cases I've been able to fully solve this by simply moving the casts to strategic places.

One common way is to make sure that calls to private methods inside the same compilation unit does not do type checks. These can easily be ensured around the public access points.

So before recompiling glib, or maybe even before you bother profiling this - if you can do a trivial refactoring to reduce the type checks I'd definitely go for that in order to save yourself time.

Cheers,
Mikkel