Re: libc performance

[nick@nsis.cl.nec.co.jp (Gavin Thomas Nicol) writes:]

>Performance is, to say the least, dismal. Currently, libc stream I/O
>uses single character read/writes. This needs to change. If someone is
>interested in updating this, please do it ASAP. 10 second font loads
>aren't fun....

When I wrote libc BSD 4.X free sources were deep in the middle of
dark ugly legal contests, and the winner was by no means clear. I
therefore reluctantly had to write a stdio package for myself, and
quickly. The result is simple, easy to write, and funnels everything
through the functions fgetc()/fputc(). BSD source access is looking
more hopeful, but is by no means in the clear yet.

For Nick's problem, I might throw together an in-line version of
getc() and putc(). I *suspect* these are the bottlenecks. The
other big bottleneck would be fread/fwrite, which could definitely
short-circuit the individual putc/getc path. Nick, I would welcome
any further clues you can provide as to bottlenecks.

A new stream I/O package is a thought, but the current one has the
benefit of being widely understood. Improving its throughput will
benefit a wide range of applications. Anybody want to jump in?

                                                Andy
Received on Thu Oct 7 16:36:12 1993