Re: [boost] [Endian] Unaligned fields in packed structs

On 09/07/2011 03:08 AM, Beman Dawes wrote:

If native_to_big, as an example, was supplied only as:

T native_to_big(T x);

then the code for big-endian systems wouldn't just be a no-op. A copy, no matter how fast, is a slower than a no-op. Of course a really smart compiler might optimize the do-nothing copy away.

Assuming T is a POD, if the function is inlined, the copy will be elided. I wouldn't think it really requires a particularly smart compiler.