🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <41vst0$9nb@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <lemahieu@paradise.caltech.edu> writes:

> I was under the impression that cout and cin for I/O was actually _faster_
> than using printf.  I thought this was because printf must parse
> the format string each time to determine how the subsequent parameters
> are to be interpreted and output, whereas this is done at compile time
> for cout.  The format string is typically constant but must be reparsed every
> time the printf function is called, which doesn't sound very efficient to me.

There's no reason why printf() has to be implemented like that.  
Functions in the standard library don't have to be treated as ordinary
functions: an implementation is free to treat them as (almost) part of 
the language.  There's nothing wrong with a C++ implementation parsing
printf's format string at compile time, doing error checking to
make sure that there aren't any type errors, and putting in the
appropriate low-level calls.

I don't know the names of any implementations that actually do this, but
I strongly suspect that there are some.
-- 
  Matt Austern                             He showed his lower teeth.  "We 
  matt@physics.berkeley.edu                all have flaws," he said, "and 
  http://dogbert.lbl.gov/~matt             mine is being wicked."