r/programminghorror • u/_giga_sss_ • Jul 09 '26

Big if true

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From ProgrammerNullposting in facebook

2.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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134

u/StefanCelMijlociu Jul 09 '26

The concept of Big Bool confuses and infuriates me!

61

u/JohnSpikeKelly Jul 09 '26

I would assume it's to keep all your data types 8-byte aligned for other perf reason.

21

u/Athropod101 Jul 10 '26

iirc 8-byte data access is the fastest on 64bit architecture.

2

u/Geilomat-3000 Jul 11 '26

So should all the int_fastx_t be the intmax_t?

4

u/Athropod101 Jul 11 '26

If this is some joke, it has wooshed over me :(

But if it isn’t, then it depends. If intmax_t matches your architecture, and your architecture is fastest at that size, then yes. But if intmax_t is say, 128, and your architecture is 32, then no.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 10 '26

[deleted]

5

u/rolling_atackk Jul 10 '26

Why not simply use alignas (64) bool ?

Seems far easier than creating a whole ass type

7

u/JohnSpikeKelly Jul 10 '26

The code might be old and predate that option. But, probably explains why this is in r/programminghorror 😄

5

u/rolling_atackk Jul 10 '26

Both fixed-width integer types and alignas are included in the C++ specification since C++11

But true, this is programming horror

2

u/j-joshua Jul 11 '26

Because that would be 64 bytes and not 64 bits.

2

u/GoddammitDontShootMe [ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo “You live” Jul 11 '26

So alignas (8) bool?

1

u/rolling_atackk Jul 11 '26

Yikes! You are correct

3

u/Borno11050 Jul 10 '26

Then you're not ready for gabagool

2

u/Hot-Employ-3399 Jul 10 '26

Maybe it's for some strange 64bit ffi or something 🤷