cppbestpractices/07-Considering_Performance.md

Considering Performance

Build Time

Forward Declare when Possible

This:

// some header file
class MyClass;

void doSomething(const MyClass &);

instead of:

// some header file
#include "MyClass.hpp"

void doSomething(const MyClass &);

This applies to templates as well:

template<typename T> class MyTemplatedType;

This is a proactive approach to simplify compilation time and rebuilding dependencies.

Avoid Unnecessary Template Instantiations

Templates are not free to instantiate. Instantiating many templates, or templates with more code than necessary increases compiled code size and build time.

For more examples see this article.

Firewall Frequently Changing Header Files

Don't Unnecessarily Include Headers

The compiler has to do something with each include directive it sees. Even if it stops as soon as it seems the #ifndef include guard, it still had to open the file and begin processing it.

include-what-you-use is a tool that can help you identify which headers you need.

Reduce the load on the preprocessor

This is a general form of "Firewall Frequently Changing Header Files" and "Don't Unnecessarily Include Headers." Tools like BOOST_PP can be very helpful, but they also put a huge burden on the preprocessor

Consider using precompiled headers

Consider Using Tools

These are not meant to supercede good design

CCACHE, facebook's thing (warp)

Put tmp on Ramdisk

See this youtube video for more details.

Use the Gold Linker

If on linux, consider using the gold linker for gcc.

Runtime

Analyze the Code!

There's no real way to know where your bottlenecks are without analyzing the code.

• http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/opencl-zone/codexl/
• http://www.codersnotes.com/sleepy

Simplify the Code

The cleaner, more simple, and easier to read the code is, the better chance the compiler has at implementing it as well.

Use Initializer Lists

// This
std::vector<ModelObject> mos{mo1, mo2};

// -or-
auto mos = std::vector<ModelObject>{mo1, mo2};

// Don't do this
std::vector<ModelObject> mos;
mos.push_back(mo1);
mos.push_back(mo2);

Initializer lists are significantly more efficient; reducing object copies and resizing of containers

Reduce Temporary Objects

// Instead of
auto mo1 = getSomeModelObject();
auto mo2 = getAnotherModelObject();

doSomething(mo1, mo2);

// consider:

doSomething(getSomeModelObject(), getAnotherModelObject());

This sort of code prevents the compiler from performing a move operation…

Enable move operations

Move operations are one of the most touted features of C++11. They allow the compiler to avoid extra copies by moving temporary objects instead of copying them in certain cases.

Certain coding choices we make (such as declaring our own destructor or assignment operator or copy constructor) prevents the compiler from generating a move constructor.

For most code, a simple

ModelObject(ModelObject &&) = default;

would suffice. However, MSVC2013 doesn’t seem to like this code yet.

Kill shared_ptr Copies

shared_ptr objects are much more expensive to copy than you think they should be. This is because the reference count must be atomic and thread safe. So this comment just re-enforces the note above - avoid temporaries and too many copies of objects. Just because we are using a pImpl it does not mean our copies are free.

Reduce Copies and Reassignments as Much as Possible

This can be facilited in some cases with an immediate-invoked lambda.

// Bad Idea
std::string somevalue;

if (somecase()) {
  somevalue = "Value A";
} else {
  somevalue = "Value B";
}

// Better Idea
const std::string somevalue = [&](){
    if (somecase()) {
      return "Value A";
    } else {
      return "Value B";
    }
  }();

Avoid Excess Exceptions

Exceptions which are thrown and captured internally during normal processing slow down the application execution. They also destroy the user experience from within a debugger, as debuggers monitor and report on each exception event. It is best to just avoid internal exception processing when possible.

Get rid of “new”

We already know that we should not be using raw memory access, so we are using unique_ptr and shared_ptr instead, right? Heap allocations are much more expensive than stack allocations, but sometimes we have to use them. To make matters worse, creating a shared_ptr actually requires 2 heap allocations.

However, the make_shared function reduces this down to just one.

std::shared_ptr<ModelObject_Impl>(new ModelObject_Impl());

// should become
std::make_shared<ModelObject_Impl>(); // (it's also more readable and concise)

Get rid of std::endl

std::endl implies a flush operation. It’s equivalent to "\n" << std::flush.

Limit Variable Scope

Variables should be declared as late as possible, and ideally, only when it's possible to initialize the object. Reduced variable scope results in less memory being used, more efficient code in general, and helps the compiler optimize the code further.

// Good idea
for (int i = 0; i < 15; ++i)
{
  MyObject obj(i);
  // do something with obj
}

// Bad Idea
MyObject obj; // meaningless object initialization
for (int i = 0; i < 15; ++i)
{
  obj = MyObject(i); // unnecessary assignment operation
  // do something with obj
}
// obj is still taking up memory for no reason

Prefer double to float

Operations are doubles are typically faster than float. However, in vectorized operations, float might win out. Analyze the code and find out which is faster for your application!

Prefer ++i to i++

... when it is semantically correct. Pre-increment is faster then post-increment because it does not require a copy of the object to be made.

// Bad Idea
for (int i = 0; i < 15; i++)
{
  std::cout << i << '\n';
}


// Good Idea
for (int i = 0; i < 15; ++i)
{
  std::cout << i << '\n';
}