Inlining Procedures

Inlining refers to replacing a subprogram reference (such as a CALL statement or function invocation) with the replicated code of the subprogram. As more procedures are inlined, global optimizations often become more effective.

The optimizer inlines small procedures, limiting inlining candidates based on such criteria as:

• Estimated size of code
• Number of call sites
• Use of constant arguments

You can specify:

• One of the /optimize options to control the optimization level. For example, specifying /optimize:4 or /optimize:5 enables interprocedure optimizations.

  Different /optimize options set different /inline:keyword options. For example, /optimize:4 sets /inline:speed.

• One of the /inline options to directly control the inlining of procedures (see Controlling the Inlining of Procedures). For example, /inline:speed inlines more procedures than /inline:size. Certain /inline keywords require /optimize:1 or higher.