[Python-Dev] an unimportant question, ...

[Guido van Rossum]

This is all over now, but I do think that the change from char to int
was made for alignment reasons. I don't know, but I could certainly
imagine that aligned memcpy calls are faster. I can't explain why I
still put the 3-byte savings comment in SVN -- perhaps I was in a
hurry.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Christian Tismer <tismer at stackless.com> wrote:
> On 3/22/09 8:01 PM, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:
>>>
>>> Now, the internals are very clear to me. What I don't understand
>>> is where the three saved bytes should be.
>>
>> If you look at the various patches in
>>
>> http://bugs.python.org/issue576101
>>
>> then there is a three-byte saving in all versions from 1 to 6.
>> Consequentially, the API was changed in those versions (but only
>> starting from version 5, i.e. the first version created by Guido).
>>
>> For some reason, the saving was then removed from the patch that
>> got actually committed (#7). I guess the comment just stayed.
>
> Yes, funny, actually. At least, I don't find any comment why
> the char was turned into an int, after all.
> Are char pointers not on a word boundary problematic on some
> platforms?
>
> Or was it maybe to just keep the string layout on many
> common platforms compatible, in order to save rebuilding
> so many windows extension modules?
>
> If the latter is true and the only reason, I vote for reclaiming
> the three bytes. Maybe it saves a tree or two. Maybe it hurts
> very little if done for Python 3000.
>
> In any case, use the version that saves the most energy. :-)
>
> not kidding - ciao -- chris
>
> --
> Christian Tismer             :^)   <mailto:tismer at stackless.com>
> tismerysoft GmbH             :     Have a break! Take a ride on Python's
> Johannes-Niemeyer-Weg 9A     :    *Starship* http://starship.python.net/
> 14109 Berlin                 :     PGP key -> http://wwwkeys.pgp.net/
> work +49 30 802 86 56  mobile +49 173 24 18 776  fax +49 30 80 90 57 05
> PGP 0x57F3BF04       9064 F4E1 D754 C2FF 1619  305B C09C 5A3B 57F3 BF04
>      whom do you want to sponsor today?   http://www.stackless.com/
> _______________________________________________
> Python-Dev mailing list
> Python-Dev at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev
> Unsubscribe:
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/guido%40python.org
>



-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)