Re: Traditional cpp and assembler, revisited

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Thu, Dec 09, 2010 at 10:57:20AM -0500, Kurt Lidl wrote:
> I would bet that using cpp is faster than using m4 too.

We are not processing C++ like header chains here, so the relative speed
of either tool is of little relevance. But I wouldn't be too sure with
that assertion:

$ time m4 < web2 > /dev/null
        0.06 real         0.05 user         0.01 sys

$ time cpp < web2 > /dev/null
        0.34 real         0.24 user         0.10 sys

The primary reason for going with m4 is simply that m4 allows a number
of things to be done more sanely.

Joerg