[Numpy-discussion] Changeset 6557

[David Cournapeau]

On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 3:20 AM, Charles R Harris
<charlesr.harris@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The macro is ugly, unneeded, and obfuscating. Why construct a number from
> characters and shifts when you can just *write it down*?

The idea was to replace the 'ABCD' multi-byte constant. If you think
that writing down the corresponding integer is cleaner, so be it - I
don't care either way. I am not sure I see a difference between 'A' <<
24 .... and 103...., though.


> True, it is initialized here:
>
>         movl    $16909060, -8(%ebp)
>

The generated assembly is exactly the same wether the constant is
initialized through the macro or the integer (the actual integer is in
the assembly). But in the following case:

const union {
npy_uint32 i;
    char c[4];
} bint = {some constant};

switch (bint.c[0]) {
   case 'A':
  etc....
}

The compiler did not remove the conditionals corresponding to the
switch - const or not.

cheers,

David