Will GCC inline a function that takes a pointer?

Question

I have a function which operates on piece of data (let's say, an int), and I want to change it in place by passing a reference to the valule. As such, I have the function: void myFunction(int *thing) { ... }. When I use it I call it thus: myFunction(&anInt).

As my function is called frequently (but from many different places) I am concerned about its performance. The reason I have refactored it into a function is testability and code reuse.

Will the compiler be able to optimize the function, inlining it to operate directly on my anInt variable?

I hope you'll take this question in the spirit in which it's asked (i.e. I'm not prematurely worrying about optimisation, I'm curious about the answer). Similarly, I don't want to make it into a macro.

Answer 1

One way to find out if the function is inlined is to use -Winline gcc option:

-Winline
  Warn if a function can not be inlined and it was declared as inline.
  Even with this option, the compiler will not warn about failures to inline
  functions declared in system headers.

  The compiler uses a variety of heuristics to determine whether or not to
  inline a function. For example, the compiler takes into account the size
  of the function being inlined and the amount of inlining that has already
  been done in the current function.  Therefore, seemingly insignificant
  changes in the source program can cause the warnings produced by -Winline
  to appear or disappear.

Answer 2

GCC is quite smart. Consider this code fragment:

#include <stdio.h>

void __inline__ inc(int *val)
{
    ++ *val;
}

int main()
{
    int val;

    scanf("%d", &val);

    inc(&val);

    printf("%d\n", val);

    return 0;
}

After a gcc -S -O3 test.c you'll get the following relevant asm:

...
call    __isoc99_scanf
movl    12(%rsp), %esi
movl    $.LC1, %edi
xorl    %eax, %eax
addl    $1, %esi
movl    %esi, 12(%rsp)
call    printf
...

As you can see, there's no need to be an asm expert to see the inc() call has been converted to an increment instruction.