C++ Inline – Why Bother With the ‘inline’ Keyword in C++?

Performance

As has been suggested in previous answers, use of the inline keyword can make code faster by inlining function calls, often at the expense of increased executables. “Inlining function calls” just means substituting the call to the target function with the actual code of the function, after filling in the arguments accordingly.

However, modern compilers are very good at inlining function calls automatically without any prompt from the user when set to high optimisation. Actually, compilers are usually better at determining what calls to inline for speed gain than humans are.

Declaring functions inline explicitly for the sake of performance gain is (almost?) always unnecessary!

Additionally, compilers can and will ignore the inline request if it suits them. Compilers will do this if a call to the function is impossible to inline (i.e. using nontrivial recursion or function pointers) but also if the function is simply too large for a meaningful performance gain.

One Definition Rule

However, declaring an inline function using the inline keyword has other effects, and may actually be necessary to satisfy the One Definition Rule (ODR): This rule in the C++ standard states that a given symbol may be declared multiple times but may only be defined once. If the link editor (= linker) encounters several identical symbol definitions, it will generate an error.

One solution to this problem is to make sure that a compilation unit doesn't export a given symbol by giving it internal linkage by declaring it static.

However, it's often better to mark a function inline instead. This tells the linker to merge all definitions of this function across compilation units into one definition, with one address, and shared function-static variables.

As an example, consider the following program:

// header.hpp
#ifndef HEADER_HPP
#define HEADER_HPP

#include <cmath>
#include <numeric>
#include <vector>

using vec = std::vector<double>;

/*inline*/ double mean(vec const& sample) {
    return std::accumulate(begin(sample), end(sample), 0.0) / sample.size();
}

#endif // !defined(HEADER_HPP)

// test.cpp
#include "header.hpp"

#include <iostream>
#include <iomanip>

void print_mean(vec const& sample) {
    std::cout << "Sample with x̂ = " << mean(sample) << '\n';
}

// main.cpp
#include "header.hpp"

void print_mean(vec const&); // Forward declaration.

int main() {
    vec x{4, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 6, 3, 8, 6, 8, 3, 1, 7};
    print_mean(x);
}

Note that both .cpp files include the header file and thus the function definition of mean. Although the file is saved with include guards against double inclusion, this will result in two definitions of the same function, albeit in different compilation units.

Now, if you try to link those two compilation units — for example using the following command:

⟩⟩⟩ g++ -std=c++11 -pedantic main.cpp test.cpp

you'll get an error saying “duplicate symbol __Z4meanRKNSt3__16vectorIdNS_9allocatorIdEEEE” (which is the mangled name of our function mean).

If, however, you uncomment the inline modifier in front of the function definition, the code compiles and links correctly.

Function templates are a special case: they are always inline, regardless of whether they were declared that way. This doesn’t mean that the compiler will inline calls to them, but they won’t violate ODR. The same is true for member functions that are defined inside a class or struct.

The inline keyword really just tells the linker (or tells the compiler to tell the linker) that multiple identical definitions of the same function are not an error. You'll need it if you want to define a function in a header, or you will get "multiple definition" errors from the linker, if the header is included in more than one compilation unit.

The rationale for choosing inline as the keyword seems to be that the only reason why one would want to define a (non-template) function in a header is so it could be inlined by the compiler. The compiler cannot inline a function call, unless it has the full definition. If the function is not defined in the header, the compiler only has the declaration and cannot inline the function even if it wanted to.

Nowadays, I've heard, it's not only the compiler that optimizes the code, but the linker can do that as well. A linker could (if they don't do it already) inline function calls even if the function wasn't defined in the same compilation unit.

And it's probably not a good idea to define functions larger than perhaps a single line in the header if at all (bad for compile time, and should the large function be inlined, it might lead to bloat and worse performance).