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After learning more about memory alignment and how it can impact processor data access, I tried to find something in the standard that offers proper memory alignment inside blocks of raw memory that will be used to hold heterogeneous types. With no luck, I had to come up with a solution.

The problem

Assuming we have some variadic template of the form: \$T_0, T_1, ..., T_{n - 1}, T_n\$:

We can't just construct \$T_n\$ at offset sizeof( \$T_{n-1}\$ ) because they would be in an unaligned address. Example, for the list <char, int> and std::aligned_storage_t<8, 4> storage, doing:

::new ( &storage ) char{}; // OK; can go into any address in terms of alignment
::new ( &storage + sizeof( char ) ) int{}; // now misaligned!

This would look like so in memory:

bytes:    [  0  ][  1  ][  2  ][  3  ][  4  ]
contents: [ c_0 ][ i_0 ][ i_1 ][ i_2 ][ i_3 ]

Which is clearly unaligned for int. For an int that follows a char to be properly aligned, it should look like this in memory:

bytes:    [  0  ][  1  ][  2  ][  3  ][  4  ][  5  ][  6  ][  7  ]
contents: [ c_0 ][ pad ][ pad ][ pad ][ i_0 ][ i_1 ][ i_2 ][ i_3 ]

This is exactly what your compiler does when you declare a class in order to maintain alignment:

struct my_type         ----         struct my_type
{                      ----         {
    char c;            ----             char c;
    int i;             ----             char padding[ 3 ]; // courtesy of the compiler
};                     ----             int i;
                       ----         };

Solution

For some variadic template, I present a way to automatically generate offsets into aligned memory for the respective types in the variadic template. This allows me to in-place construct types while maintaining proper address alignment so that performance is optimal.

The program generates a compile-time offset map, where the \$n\$th offset is added to the starting address of the std::aligned_storage_t<> where the types will reside in order to in-place construct the \$n\$th type at its properly aligned memory address.

TL;DR: I do what the compiler does for classes (as above), but for std::aligned_storage_t<>.

Advantages

  • std::tuple<> instance creation and access can bog down compile time. The proposed functionality can be used to implement a non-recursive tuple definition or any other variant-like type with static memory (see usage example for basic implementation).

  • Does not consume any more memory than an instance of std::tuple<> with the same variadic template.

  • Everything is done at compile-time. Accessing memory locations with constant offsets should be fast.

Implementation

Usage of std::index_sequence<> and other related classes should be replaced by non-recursive implementations (such as my very own found here) in order to decrease compilation time.

1. Calculating the offsets and total memory required

The calculate_offsets() function returns a std::array<> containing the offsets, where the value at index \$i\$ maps to the offset for \$T_i\$. The total required size is stored in the final position in the array.

#include <array>
#include <cstddef>
#include <utility>

template<std::size_t align, class... Ts, std::size_t... is>
constexpr auto calculate_offsets( std::index_sequence<is...> ) noexcept
{
    static_assert( sizeof...( Ts ) == sizeof...( is ),
        "invalid std::index_sequence<is...>; sizeof...( Ts ) != sizeof...( is )" );

    constexpr std::size_t alignments[] = { alignof( Ts )... };
    constexpr std::size_t sizes[] = { sizeof( Ts )... };

    std::size_t offsets[ sizeof...( Ts ) ] = {};
    std::size_t memory_used{ 0 };

    for ( std::size_t i{ 0 }, multiplier{ 1 }; i < sizeof...( Ts ); ++i )
    {
        while ( memory_used % alignments[ i ] != 0 )
            ++memory_used;

        offsets[ i ] = memory_used;
        memory_used += sizes[ i ];

        if ( memory_used > multiplier * align )
            ++multiplier;
    }

    while ( memory_used % align != 0 )
        ++memory_used;

    return std::array<std::size_t, sizeof...( Ts ) + 1>
    {
        offsets[ is ]..., memory_used
    };
}

2. Providing simple access to the generated values

The simple make_aligned_offsets<> type provides a simple interface for getting the information generated by calculate_offsets().

template<std::size_t align, class... Ts>
struct make_aligned_offsets
{
    static constexpr std::array<std::size_t, sizeof...( Ts ) + 1> map
    {
        calculate_offsets<align, Ts...>( std::make_index_sequence<sizeof...( Ts )>{} )
    };

    static constexpr std::size_t size{ map[ sizeof...( Ts ) ] };
    static constexpr std::size_t alignment{ align };
};

Sample usage

In this sample, usage, I demonstrate how to use the functionality to properly receive aligned addresses for the respective types. As before, usage of std::tuple<> and std::tuple_elemet_t<> should be replaced by non-recursive implementations to increase compilation speed.

#include <tuple>
#include <cstdint>
#include <cassert>
#include <algorithm>

template<class... Ts>
class multitype_storage
{
private:
    using tuple_t = std::tuple<Ts...>;
    using info_t = make_aligned_offsets<std::max( { alignof( Ts )... } ), Ts...>;
    std::aligned_storage_t<info_t::size, info_t::alignment> m_data;

public:
    template<std::size_t i>
    constexpr decltype( auto ) get() noexcept
    {
        return *reinterpret_cast<std::tuple_element_t<i, tuple_t>*>(
            reinterpret_cast<char*>( &m_data ) + info_t::map[ i ] );
    }
};

int main()
{
    multitype_storage<double, int, char, float> storage;

    assert( ( (std::intptr_t) &storage.get<0>() ) % alignof( double ) == 0 );
    assert( ( (std::intptr_t) &storage.get<1>() ) % alignof( int ) == 0 );
    assert( ( (std::intptr_t) &storage.get<2>() ) % alignof( char ) == 0 );
    assert( ( (std::intptr_t) &storage.get<3>() ) % alignof( float ) == 0 );
}
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1 Answer 1

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I only see one easy speedup:

while ( memory_used % align != 0 )
     ++memory_used;

Why do multiple divisions? Just do a single division, get the remainder, and then add the appropriate amount to memory_used

int remainder = memory_used % align;
if (remainder != 0)
    memory_used += align - remainder;
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