On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 01:43:38PM -0500, Michael N. Moran wrote: > Excuse me. IANALL nor am I a compiler expert but ... > what kind of optimization might be done with the information > that a reference *should* never be null? Especially within > the server code (the implementation of "int f(int& a)" in this case.)
There are several examples. One is converting from a derived class to a base class when there is multiple inheritance. An offset must be subtracted, unless it is a null pointer. Another is the "delete" operator. It must first check that the argument is null; it only calls the underlying memory allocator if it is not.
