I'm using godbolt to see generated code with gcc and clang.
I tried to implement to djb2 hash.
gcc always trying is best to eval constexpr function.
clang is evaluating constexpr only if the variable is constexpr.
Let's see the example:
constexpr int djb2(char const *str)
{
int hash = 5381;
int c = 0;
while ((c = *str++))
hash = ((hash << 5) + hash) + c; /* hash * 33 + c */
return hash;
}
int main()
{
int i = djb2("hello you :)");
}
With this example, gcc is evaluating a compile time i. But clang at run time.
If I add constexpr to i
, clang is evaluating also at compile time.
Do you know if the standard is saying something about that ?
EDIT: thanks to all. So, as I understand, without constexpr the compiler is doing what is want. With constexpr, the compiler is forced to evaluating the constant.