c++11 fast constexpr integer powers

Question

Beating the dead horse here. A typical (and fast) way of doing integer powers in C is this classic:

int64_t ipow(int64_t base, int exp){
  int64_t result = 1         


        

Answer 1

It seems that this is a standard problem with constexpr and template programming in C++. Due to compile time constraints, the constexpr version is slower than a normal version if executed at runtime. But overloading doesn't allows to chose the correct version. The standardization committee is working on this issue. See for example the following working document http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG21/docs/papers/2013/n3583.pdf

Answer 2

A good optimizing compiler will transform tail-recursive functions to run as fast as imperative code. You can transform this function to be tail recursive with pumping. GCC 4.8.1 compiles this test program:

#include <cstdint>

constexpr int64_t ipow(int64_t base, int exp, int64_t result = 1) {
  return exp < 1 ? result : ipow(base*base, exp/2, (exp % 2) ? result*base : result);
}

int64_t foo(int64_t base, int exp) {
  return ipow(base, exp);
}

into a loop (See this at gcc.godbolt.org):

foo(long, int):
    testl   %esi, %esi
    movl    $1, %eax
    jle .L4
.L3:
    movq    %rax, %rdx
    imulq   %rdi, %rdx
    testb   $1, %sil
    cmovne  %rdx, %rax
    imulq   %rdi, %rdi
    sarl    %esi
    jne .L3
    rep; ret
.L4:
    rep; ret

vs. your while loop implementation:

ipow(long, int):
    testl   %esi, %esi
    movl    $1, %eax
    je  .L4
.L3:
    movq    %rax, %rdx
    imulq   %rdi, %rdx
    testb   $1, %sil
    cmovne  %rdx, %rax
    imulq   %rdi, %rdi
    sarl    %esi
    jne .L3
    rep; ret
.L4:
    rep; ret

Instruction-by-instruction identical is good enough for me.