From: "Thierry Lelegard" <lelegard@club-internet.fr>
Subject: Re: Why parameter passing by copy?
Date: 2000/05/27
Date: 2000-05-27T14:02:23+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <8gokhf$a6j$1@front6m.grolier.fr> (raw)
In-Reply-To: dale-277623.23001027052000@news.rmit.edu.au
> Ada requires that scalars be passed by copy. I was under the impression
> that this was chosen because it was faster, but i've never seen a
> rational argument for this from the Ada83 perspective of computer
> hardware, nor whether such arguments still hold true for modern
> processors.
On the contrary, it is even more true for modern processors
than for old ones.
For fast RISC processors, memory is a "slow device". Accessing
a datum in memory (passing the address) is much slower than
passing it in a register (by copy). Most calling standards for
RISC processors pass the arguments (or the first N arguments)
in registers.
________________________________________________________
Thierry Lelegard, Paris, France
E-mail: lelegard@club-internet.fr
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2000-05-27 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2000-05-27 0:00 Why parameter passing by copy? Dale Stanbrough
2000-05-27 0:00 ` Thierry Lelegard [this message]
2000-05-27 0:00 ` Pat Rogers
2000-05-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
2000-05-27 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
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