What's the difference between "static" and "static inline" function?

c inline
new_perl picture new_perl · Oct 14, 2011 · Viewed 156k times · Source

IMO both make the function to have a scope of the translation unit only.

What's the difference between "static" and "static inline" function?

Why should inline be put in a header file, not in .c file?

Answer

littleadv picture littleadv · Oct 14, 2011

inline instructs the compiler to attempt to embed the function content into the calling code instead of executing an actual call.

For small functions that are called frequently that can make a big performance difference.

However, this is only a "hint", and the compiler may ignore it, and most compilers will try to "inline" even when the keyword is not used, as part of the optimizations, where its possible.

for example:

static int Inc(int i) {return i+1};
.... // some code
int i;
.... // some more code
for (i=0; i<999999; i = Inc(i)) {/*do something here*/};

This tight loop will perform a function call on each iteration, and the function content is actually significantly less than the code the compiler needs to put to perform the call. inline will essentially instruct the compiler to convert the code above into an equivalent of:

 int i;
 ....
 for (i=0; i<999999; i = i+1) { /* do something here */};

Skipping the actual function call and return

Obviously this is an example to show the point, not a real piece of code.

static refers to the scope. In C it means that the function/variable can only be used within the same translation unit.

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