Would there be a speedup if we invoked a use integer?

[petdance]

Are all our math operations floating point for no reason? Will use integer help speed anything up?

[bk2204]

I did some tests on the repository for git, and it doesn't seem that "use integer" makes any difference.

Before

../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.79s user 0.12s system 51% cpu 3.713 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 5.06s user 0.26s system 95% cpu 5.593 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.66s user 0.12s system 47% cpu 3.708 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.60s user 0.11s system 47% cpu 3.613 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.66s user 0.09s system 48% cpu 3.609 total

../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.21s user 0.03s system 99% cpu 1.244 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.15s user 0.03s system 99% cpu 1.179 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.27s user 0.03s system 99% cpu 1.302 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.12s user 0.05s system 99% cpu 1.169 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.06s user 0.04s system 99% cpu 1.101 total

After

../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.60s user 0.12s system 48% cpu 3.582 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.78s user 0.08s system 51% cpu 3.630 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.55s user 0.10s system 45% cpu 3.596 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.66s user 0.11s system 48% cpu 3.621 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use 1.62s user 0.12s system 47% cpu 3.645 total

../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.13s user 0.04s system 99% cpu 1.176 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.14s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.164 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.10s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.126 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.14s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.171 total
../ack2/ack-standalone use > /dev/null 1.20s user 0.02s system 99% cpu 1.228 total

As you can see, the numbers don't indicate any significant change by using "use integer". I think the one five-second time is just an anomaly, so I wouldn't consider it.

[petdance]

Thanks for this. I've put a note in my new DESIGN.md file that tracks these sorts of design decisions.

https://github.com/petdance/ack2/blob/dev/DESIGN.md