On 5 March 2013 11:55, Mark Kettenis <mark.kette...@xs4all.nl> wrote: >> Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2013 11:36:36 +0100 >> From: Martin Pieuchot <mpieuc...@nolizard.org> >> >> The ifaddr structure contains a reference counter and two different way >> to check it before freeing its memory: a macro IFAFREE(), and a function >> ifafree(). >> Because the former calls the latter when the reference counter is null, >> and then also check for the reference counter, I see no point in keeping >> two ways to do the same thing. > > Well, the point is probably that by doing the refcount check in the > macro you avoid a function call in most cases. It's very well > possible that this is a case of premature optimization. Almost > certainly the case unless the macro is called in a > performance-critical path. If it is called in a performance-critical > path, some benchmarking should probably be done to make sure this > doesn't impact something like packet forwarding performance in a > negative way. >
to be fair, there are millions of these function calls. i highly doubt one can measure any performance difference -- it'll all be within error margin.
