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POWhere is the virtual function call overhead?
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copied!<p>I'm trying to benchmark the difference between a function pointer call and a virtual function call. To do this, I have written two pieces of code, that do the same mathematical computation over an array. One variant uses an array of pointers to functions and calls those in a loop. The other variant uses an array of pointers to a base class and calls its virtual function, which is overloaded in the derived classes to do absolutely the same thing as the functions in the first variant. Then I print the time elapsed and use a simple shell script to run the benchmark many times and compute the average run time.</p> <p>Here is the code:</p> <pre><code>#include <iostream> #include <cstdlib> #include <ctime> #include <cmath> using namespace std; long long timespecDiff(struct timespec *timeA_p, struct timespec *timeB_p) { return ((timeA_p->tv_sec * 1000000000) + timeA_p->tv_nsec) - ((timeB_p->tv_sec * 1000000000) + timeB_p->tv_nsec); } void function_not( double *d ) { *d = sin(*d); } void function_and( double *d ) { *d = cos(*d); } void function_or( double *d ) { *d = tan(*d); } void function_xor( double *d ) { *d = sqrt(*d); } void ( * const function_table[4] )( double* ) = { &function_not, &function_and, &function_or, &function_xor }; int main(void) { srand(time(0)); void ( * index_array[100000] )( double * ); double array[100000]; for ( long int i = 0; i < 100000; ++i ) { index_array[i] = function_table[ rand() % 4 ]; array[i] = ( double )( rand() / 1000 ); } struct timespec start, end; clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &start); for ( long int i = 0; i < 100000; ++i ) { index_array[i]( &array[i] ); } clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &end); unsigned long long time_elapsed = timespecDiff(&end, &start); cout << time_elapsed / 1000000000.0 << endl; } </code></pre> <p>and here is the virtual function variant:</p> <pre><code>#include <iostream> #include <cstdlib> #include <ctime> #include <cmath> using namespace std; long long timespecDiff(struct timespec *timeA_p, struct timespec *timeB_p) { return ((timeA_p->tv_sec * 1000000000) + timeA_p->tv_nsec) - ((timeB_p->tv_sec * 1000000000) + timeB_p->tv_nsec); } class A { public: virtual void calculate( double *i ) = 0; }; class A1 : public A { public: void calculate( double *i ) { *i = sin(*i); } }; class A2 : public A { public: void calculate( double *i ) { *i = cos(*i); } }; class A3 : public A { public: void calculate( double *i ) { *i = tan(*i); } }; class A4 : public A { public: void calculate( double *i ) { *i = sqrt(*i); } }; int main(void) { srand(time(0)); A *base[100000]; double array[100000]; for ( long int i = 0; i < 100000; ++i ) { array[i] = ( double )( rand() / 1000 ); switch ( rand() % 4 ) { case 0: base[i] = new A1(); break; case 1: base[i] = new A2(); break; case 2: base[i] = new A3(); break; case 3: base[i] = new A4(); break; } } struct timespec start, end; clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &start); for ( int i = 0; i < 100000; ++i ) { base[i]->calculate( &array[i] ); } clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &end); unsigned long long time_elapsed = timespecDiff(&end, &start); cout << time_elapsed / 1000000000.0 << endl; } </code></pre> <p>My system is LInux, Fedora 13, gcc 4.4.2. The code is compiled it with g++ -O3. The first one is test1, the second is test2.</p> <p>Now I see this in console:</p> <pre><code>[Ignat@localhost circuit_testing]$ ./test2 && ./test2 0.0153142 0.0153166 </code></pre> <p>Well, more or less, I think. And then, this:</p> <pre><code>[Ignat@localhost circuit_testing]$ ./test2 && ./test2 0.01531 0.0152476 </code></pre> <p>Where are the 25% which should be visible? How can the first executable be even slower than the second one?</p> <p>I'm asking this because I'm doing a project which involves calling a lot of small functions in a row like this in order to compute the values of an array, and the code I've inherited does a very complex manipulation to avoid the virtual function call overhead. Now where is this famous call overhead?</p>

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