Return static vector by reference is slow

Question

I was setting up a cache to draw some shapes. My approach was as following:

I created a class OrbitCacheManager.h that looked like this:

#ifndef OrbitCacheManager_h
#define OrbitCacheManager_h
#include <vector>
#include "cache_0_0.h"
#include "cache_1_0.h"
// many more includes

namespace Core {

   class OrbitCacheManager
   {
   public:
        static std::pair<float,float> getValue(const std::pair<int,int>& type, float phase, float param)
        {
            auto cache = getCacheData(type);
            // interpolate values based on phase and param
            return calculated_value;
        }
   private:
        static std::vector<std::pair<float,float>>& getCacheData(const std::pair<int,int>& type)
        {
            if (type.first == 0 && type.second == 0) return cache_0_0::values;
            if (type.first == 1 && type.second == 0) return cache_1_0::values;
            // etc
        }

The cache files look like this:

cache_0_0.h:

#ifndef cache_0_0_h
#define cache_0_0_h 
#include <vector>
namespace Core {
class cache_0_0{
public:
    static std::vector<std::pair<float,float>> values;
};
};
#endif

cache_0_0.cpp:

#include "cache_0_0.h"
using namespace Core;
std::vector<std::pair<float,float>> cache_0_0::values = {
{ 0.000000, 1.000000 },     { 0.062791, 0.998027 }, // etc

This was ment to be run like this:

for (some phase range) {
    auto v = OrbitCacheManager::getValue(type, phase, param);
    // do something with v
}

This approach turn out really slow, the profiler showed lots of CPU peaks and the UI was really laggy.

When I refactored the getCacheData method in OrbitCacheManager.h to this:

static std::vector<std::pair<float,float>>* getCacheData(const std::pair<int,int>& type) 
{
    if (type.first == 0 && type.second == 0) return &(cache_0_0::values);

Everything started working as expected.

My question is, why did that change increased speed so dramatically?

I'am using clang c++11 on IOS

Answer 1

You may be returning it by reference, but you are storing in another object, hence still doing a costly copy:

 auto& cache = getCacheData(type);

You should add the & everywhere you return by reference and expect to keep a reference and not a copy.