How to write code which minimizes page faults?

[Sune]

Hi!

Pre-requisites:
-------------------
1) Consider I'm about to write a quite large program. Say 500 K
lines.
2) Part of this code will consist of 50 structs with, say, no more
than at most 1K bytes of data.
3) These structs are to be used by all of the other 500K lines in
various places.
4) Linux, SUN Solaris

Design decisions:
-------------------
- Add functions to the structs so they handle their own data. Kind of
C++ OOP.
- Just make the structs carry data, and write macros to handle the
data of each struct, and insert those macros in appropriate places
in the 500 K lines of code, wherever they are used.

This question does not deal in what is good programming in terms of
macros or OOP and data encapsulation in C!!!!! So please no remarks
on this unless it makes your answers to the questions below more
clear.

Question:
--------------------
- I'm afraid that adding code/functions to structs results in worse
locality, i.e. this will result in increased paging. Is that so?

- Is inserting code in the 500K lines wherever it's needed, worth
the effort? or am I over exaggerating the risk and consequences of
page faults?

Thanks in advance
/Sune

[Malcolm]

"akarl" <fu********@com hem.se> wrote

Why do you want to use C (a high level assembler) for such a large
program?

C++ is a good language for many complex projects. It doesn't follow that C
is a bad or worse language for such projects.

[akarl]

Default User wrote:

akarl wrote:

Why do you want to use C (a high level assembler) for such a large
program?

Why do you want to make false and ridiculous statements on newsgroups?

No, let me rephrase that:

Why do you want to use a low-level and unsafe programming language
for a project of this size?

It's not a rant, I'm only curious.
August

[Walter Roberson]

In article <as************ *******@newsb.t elia.net>,
akarl <fu********@com hem.se> wrote:

let me rephrase that: Why do you want to use a low-level and unsafe programming language
for a project of this size? It's not a rant, I'm only curious.

Would it be better if they were to do the proposed project in LISP ?
APL? perl ?
--
Any sufficiently old bug becomes a feature.

[Default User]

akarl wrote:

Why do you want to use a low-level and unsafe programming language
for a project of this size?
Why would you bother to post to a newsgroup dedicated to a language you
despise.
It's not a rant, I'm only curious.

It's more a troll, I'd say. So,
*plonk*


Brian

[akarl]

Default User wrote:

akarl wrote:

Why do you want to use a low-level and unsafe programming language
for a project of this size?

Why would you bother to post to a newsgroup dedicated to a language you
despise.

I don't. I think C is good for making small, efficient and/or low-level
programs.

It's not a rant, I'm only curious.

It's more a troll, I'd say. So,

The comp.lang.* groups are not only for religious followers of one
language, you know. I would certainly be a troll if I said that C sucks
in every respect, but I haven't.

Since neither you nor Sune seem to be able to answer my question you
probably have no good answer, so I won't be bothering you with it.
August

[Richard Bos]

akarl <fu********@com hem.se> wrote:

Default User wrote:

akarl wrote:

Why do you want to use C (a high level assembler) for such a large
program?
Why do you want to make false and ridiculous statements on newsgroups?

No, let me rephrase that:

Why do you want to use a low-level and unsafe programming language
for a project of this size?

Let me, then, rephrase Brian's reply to fit your rephrased question:

Why do you want to make false and ridiculous statements on newsgroups?
It's not a rant, I'm only curious.

Feh.

Richard

[Sune]

Hi guys!

Thanks for giving me insight on a non-issue it seems. I'm usually a C++
programmer so that's why some of my suggestions went off topic (like
functions in structs).

The reason I need info on C is that I'm rather fed up with OO and think
I can achieve the same abstractions and the necessary level of
encapsulation in C without having to instantiate 25-100 objects in the
traffical path.

I believe C with small intelligent C++ objects is the way to
go...together with exceptions, RAII etc. Nice mix I think...

BRs
/Olle

[Malcolm]

"akarl" <fu********@com hem.se> wrote in message
news:vP******** ***********@new sb.telia.net...

Default User wrote:

akarl wrote:

Why do you want to use a low-level and unsafe programming language for a
project of this size?

Since neither you nor Sune seem to be able to answer my question you
probably have no good answer, so I won't be bothering you with it.

C is a simple language, so maintenance and configuration is easy. That's
what you probably mean by "low level".
All programming languages are unsafe, in that none can guarantee that the
programmer hasn't made an error. Since C is so simple, mistakes are unlikely
to be due to some quirk of the language.

[akarl]

Malcolm wrote:

"akarl" <fu********@com hem.se> wrote in message
news:vP******** ***********@new sb.telia.net...

Default User wrote:

akarl wrote:

Why do you want to use a low-level and unsafe programming language for a
project of this size?
Since neither you nor Sune seem to be able to answer my question you
probably have no good answer, so I won't be bothering you with it.

C is a simple language, so maintenance and configuration is easy. That's
what you probably mean by "low level".

No, I mean direct memory access, raw pointers etc.
All programming languages are unsafe, in that none can guarantee that the
programmer hasn't made an error.
A safe language is a language where a large class of errors are detected
when they occur and not when data gets corrupted. Such a language
provides e.g. array bounds checking, garbage collection and restricted
pointers.

Since C is so simple, mistakes are unlikely to be due to some quirk of the language.

Lots of laughs. You're being ironic I hope. The quirks of C is part of
it's charm and success. If you want to see a *real* simple (procedural)
language, check out Oberon-2.

August

[Gordon Burditt]

>> All programming languages are unsafe, in that none can guarantee that the

programmer hasn't made an error.

Unless, of course, it is impossible to make an error. Consider an
assembly language with one-bit opcodes, NOOP and HALT, which can
be arranged in any order. (A HALT opcode is implied if you run
off the end of the program.) Of course, you can't do anything
USEFUL with it, either. All those ugly things that cause errors
like pointers, variables, arithmetic, loops, etc. are prohibited.

Gordon L. Burditt