3 ms·

Where does he get that code from? The actual objc_msgSend function is much much longer and employs a bunch of other tricks.

• mikeash 13y ago
  Where do you get that idea? What's shown is it. There's a lot more to the message send system, but the rest is helpers that live outside of objc_msgSend and aren't on the fast path. There's no room for "a bunch of other tricks", because objc_msgSend needs to be as fast as possible, and the more it does, the slower it'll run.
  • jws 13y ago
    In the Mavericks version there are two jumps to labels that are not present in the code shown. One is for tagged pointers, the other is for a cache miss. The cache miss is probably interesting, tricky code. Apropos nothing… the cache search algorithm is "enter at predictable point, linear search everything". When one thinks of all the PhD time spent developing and analyzing search data structures, this is a good reminder that at small N, other factors dominate. Also, adding a one byte instruction prefix that you know will be ignored because your processor is happier if instructions aren't so bunched up is so close to witchcraft that the author should avoid campfires with stakes in the center.
    • mikeash 13y ago
      The cache miss may or may not be interesting, depending on your interests, but it's all written in C and is much longer and more boring. As soon as you miss the cache, you're off the fast path, so the cache miss code in objc_msgSend just does the requisite register preservation and then calls into C.