Re: source code speed question
- Posted by bernie Apr 02, 2009
- 842 views
In DLL.E C_INT, C_LONG, etc. are constants initialized in HEX.
When using say a C_LONG does the program convert it to DECIMAL each time its used in the user's code or is it converted to DECIMAL only ONCE when it's defined as a constant ?
I know it is more convenient to use HEX in the source but wouldn't be faster to use all DECIMAL in the constants so no conversion would be required ?
Bernie,
I'm not sure what you're asking. A number is a number. To the computer, it's a bunch of bits, neither decimal nor hexadecimal. The radix only affects the display of a number.
Perhaps its the sign that's the issue? Take a look at the docs for Atoms and Sequences. In particular:
Hex numbers are always positive, unless you add a minus sign in front of the # character. So for instance #FFFFFFFF is a huge positive number (4294967295), not -1, as some machine-language programmers might expect.
Matt
Matt:
Because you are using a character by character scan of a number
For example using the same number:
You see a HEX number in the code as '#' '1' '2' 'B'
You see a DECIMAL number in the code as '2' '9' '9'
Which is faster to scan ?
