Re:Python 3.11: “Zero cost” exception handling
by zeotroph on Wednesday October 06, 2021 @12:23PM
(#28774968)
Indeed, in the following case of a 4-deep call stack, each with its own exception, the bulk of the handling code can be moved elsewhere (already marked as cold by the compiler), but nonetheless there are a few instructions which won't matter in most cases but are still required to jump there and thus end up in the instruction cache.
Nevertheless, an example that demonstrates the exception path doesn't say much about the "zero-cost" non-exception path. In C++ exception handling is expensive. Outside of actually directly handling exceptions they have zero cost. There are no generated instructions. They do not consume cache. They do not hinder further optimizations.