On 6/12/20 8:52 PM, Manu wrote:
> Except in the case I described as case #3, in which it would be useful
> to have SOME WAY, to 'force inline' and receive an error if it failed.
I recall a couple of compilers (TopSpeed, does anyone remember?) had
such a feature. The warnings listing the arbitrary functions that failed
whatever heuristics was utterly useless. No C++ compiler implements it
today, and I don't think any should.
I feel like I clearly agreed here too; I gave 3 cases which are distinct use cases. C++ implements #1 and #2, and uses the nomenclature `inline` for those cases.
What you're talking about here is case #3, which C++ doesn't support, and I agree C++ shouldn't try and jam this idea into `inline` because that has a confused history, and a fairly well defined present.
That doesn't mean that it's not a useful tool though, and one that I've wanted lots of times... but as I've made clear, I see this as a distinct use case, and should be explicit and distinct.
This #3 use case is what `pragma(inline)` is closest to today. We almost have the #3 thing that C++ doesn't have, and we have no way to express the #1-2 things that C++ does have.
If it's the case that `pragma(inline)` is designed to model #3, then we're still out in the dark with #1 and #2, which are the overwhelmingly more common use cases.