ANSI C #define VS functions

Question

I have an question about performance of my code. Let's say I have a struct in C for a point:

typedef struct _CPoint
{
    float x, y;
} CPoint;

and a function where I use the struct.

float distance(CPoint p1, CPoint p2)
{
    return sqrt(pow((p2.x-p1.x),2)+pow((p2.y-p1.y),2));
}

I was wondering if it would be a smart idea to replace this function for a #define,

#define distance(p1, p2)(sqrt(pow((p2.x-p1.x),2)+pow((p2.y-p1.y),2)));

I think it will be faster because there will be no function overhead, and I'm wondering if I should use this approach for all other functions in my program to increase the performance. So my question is:

Should I replace all my functions with #define to increase the performance of my code?

please use trailing instead of leading underscores: most uses of leading underscores are a violation of the ISO C standard, and underscores followed by upper-case letters are especially bad as that's what new C language keywords use (`_Bool`, `_Complex`, `_Generic`, `_Atomic`, ...) — Christoph, Oct 14 '11 at 13:43

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 13 '11 at 16:25

No. You should never make the decision between a macro and a function based on a perceived performance difference. You should evaluate it soley based on the merits of functions over macros. In general choose functions.

Macros have a lot of hidden downsides that can bite you. Case in point, your translation to a macro here is incorrect (or at least not semantics preserving with the original function). The argument to the macro distance gets evaluated 2 times each. Imagine I made the following call

distance(GetPointA(), GetPointB());

In the macro version this actually results in 4 function calls because each argument is evaluated twice. Had distance been left as a function it would only result in 3 function calls (distance and each argument). Note: I'm ignoring the impact of sqrt and pow in the above calculations as they're the same in both versions.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 13 '11 at 16:27

There are three things:

normal functions like your distance above
inline functions
preprocessor macros

While functions guarantee some kind of type safety, they also incur a performance loss due to the fact that a stack frame needs to be used at each function call. code from inline functions is copied at the call site so that penalty is not paid -- however, your code size will increase. Macros provide no type safety and also involve textual substitution.

Choosing from all three, I'd usually use inline functions. Macros only when they are very short and very useful in this form (like hlist_for_each from the Linux kernel)

cHao · Answer 3 · 2011-10-13T16:57:49.000

I'd recommend an inline function rather than a macro. It'll give you any possible performance benefits of a macro, without the ugliness. (Macros have some gotchas that make them very iffy as a general replacement for functions. In particular, macro args are evaluated every time they're used, while function args are evaluated once each before the "call".)

inline float distance(CPoint p1, CPoint p2)
{
    float dx = p2.x - p1.x;
    float dy = p2.y - p1.y;
    return sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy);
}

(Note i also replaced pow(dx, 2) with dx * dx. The two are equivalent, and multiplication is more likely to be efficient. Some compilers might try to optimize away the call to pow...but guess what they replace it with.)

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 13 '11 at 16:29

Jared's right, and in this specific case, the cycles spent in the pow calls and the sqrt call would be in the range of 2 orders of magnitude more than the cycles spent in the call to distance.

Sometimes people assume that small code equals small time. Not so.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 13 '11 at 16:28

If using a fairly mature compiler it propaby will do this for you on assembly level if optimisation is swtiched on.

For gcc the -O3 or (for "small" functions) even the -O2 option will do this.

For details on this you might consider reading here http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize-Options.html for "-finline*" options.

ANSI C #define VS functions

5 Answers5