Re: G_GNUC_CONST with _get_type() usage

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Sven Neumann <sven gimp org> writes:
> 
> over here at convergence, we use some code that relies heavily 
> on the fact that types get registered to the GType system before 
> the objects are actually created. The code I'm speaking of looks 
> exactly as you describe it here. Since at the moment we only use 
> it on custom objects, we are not affected by this problem, but I 
> can imagine that similar code will be written that makes use of 
> GtkObjects. For that reason, I think we should go through the 
> hassle and remove the G_GNUC_CONST from all get_type() functions. 
> I'd also volunteer to do the job...
> 
 
There is a trivial workaround, which is something like:

 volatile GType dummy = foo_get_type ();

This is what I used when I encountered this problem a while back.

Basically you just have to use the return value in some way that the
compiler can't prove is useless.

I think these functions are conceptually const, and the G_GNUC_CONST
probably does reduce code size by avoiding function calls. (Though I'd
want to see measurements before getting too vehement about it.)

Havoc