The idea of inlining code – placing the actual code of a small function at each call site – is a well known compiler optimization, which I have discussed before. This technique can provide significant performance improvements, due to the elimination of the call/return sequence. Also, stack usage is reduced. There is a possible cost in terms of increased program memory requirement.

It is reasonable to expect a good C or C++ compiler, when told to compile for speed, to perform inlining automatically. Some C compilers have extensions to give more control over this, but C++ has intrinsic support for inlining within the language … (more…)