From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jamie Lokier To: "David S. Miller" Cc: tjw@omnigroup.com, dalej@apple.com, gcc@gcc.gnu.org Subject: Re: Faster compilation speed Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 13:13:00 -0000 Message-id: <20020814211306.G26404@kushida.apsleyroad.org> References: <70C1B74E-AFB3-11D6-AC58-0003938E4E3C@omnigroup.com> <20020814.112828.110204586.davem@redhat.com> X-SW-Source: 2002-08/msg00865.html David S. Miller wrote: > You can easily use much less than a full word. Foundation on > OpenStep/Mach 4.2 started storing partial ref counts in whatever spare > bits were available in each object. > > We don't have any spare bits, we have 32 bits used for RTX state then > the next object is a pointer. So whatever size counter we use will > eat at a minimum a word's worth of space to get the pointers aligned > up properly. Did I see "pointers" and "aligned" there? You have 2 spare bits per pointer, man, open your eyes! :-) -- Jamie