This is not true. Gcc will inline everything it damn well wants to. It will definitely inline any function that is smaller than a function call, like small C++

This is not true. Gcc will inline everything it damn well wants to. It will definitely inline any function that is smaller than a function call, like small C++ accessors, and any other small function available at compile time like trivial constructors and the like. The "inline" keyword mainly serves to avoid ODR violations, not to inform the optimizer.