另一个讨论的结论是:

内联函数有什么缺点吗?

显然，使用内联函数并没有什么错。

但值得注意的是以下几点!

Overuse of inlining can actually make programs slower. Depending on a function's size, inlining it can cause the code size to increase or decrease. Inlining a very small accessor function will usually decrease code size while inlining a very large function can dramatically increase code size. On modern processors smaller code usually runs faster due to better use of the instruction cache. - Google Guidelines The speed benefits of inline functions tend to diminish as the function grows in size. At some point the overhead of the function call becomes small compared to the execution of the function body, and the benefit is lost - Source There are few situations where an inline function may not work: For a function returning values; if a return statement exists. For a function not returning any values; if a loop, switch or goto statement exists. If a function is recursive. -Source The __inline keyword causes a function to be inlined only if you specify the optimize option. If optimize is specified, whether or not __inline is honored depends on the setting of the inline optimizer option. By default, the inline option is in effect whenever the optimizer is run. If you specify optimize , you must also specify the noinline option if you want the __inline keyword to be ignored. -Source

内联允许您在头文件中放置函数定义，并在多个源文件中#包含该头文件，而不违反一个定义规则。

内联函数更快，因为你不需要将参数和返回地址等东西推入或弹出堆栈;但是，它确实会使二进制文件略大一些。

有显著的区别吗?对大多数人来说，在现代硬件上还不够明显。但它可以产生影响，这对一些人来说已经足够了。

将某些东西标记为内联并不能保证它将是内联的。这只是给编译器的一个建议。有时候是不可能的比如你有一个虚函数，或者涉及到递归。有时候编译器会选择不使用它。

我可以看到这样的情况会产生明显的不同:

inline int aplusb_pow2(int a, int b) {
  return (a + b)*(a + b) ;
}

for(int a = 0; a < 900000; ++a)
    for(int b = 0; b < 900000; ++b)
        aplusb_pow2(a, b);

内联是对编译器的一个建议，它可以随意忽略。它非常适合小段代码。

如果你的函数是内联的，它基本上是插入到函数调用的代码中，而不是实际调用一个单独的函数。这有助于提高速度，因为你不必实际打电话。

它还帮助cpu进行流水线操作，因为它们不必用调用引起的新指令重新加载流水线。

唯一的缺点是可能会增加二进制大小，但只要函数很小，这就不会太大。

现在我倾向于把这类决定留给编译器(好吧，至少是聪明的编译器)。编写它们的人往往对底层架构有更详细的了解。

优势

通过在需要的地方内联代码，程序将在函数调用和返回部分花费更少的时间。它应该使您的代码运行得更快，即使它变得更大(见下文)。内联普通访问器可以是有效内联的一个例子。 通过将其标记为内联，你可以将函数定义放在头文件中(即它可以包含在多个编译单元中，而链接器不会抱怨)

缺点

It can make your code larger (i.e. if you use inline for non-trivial functions). As such, it could provoke paging and defeat optimizations from the compiler. It slightly breaks your encapsulation because it exposes the internal of your object processing (but then, every "private" member would, too). This means you must not use inlining in a PImpl pattern. It slightly breaks your encapsulation 2: C++ inlining is resolved at compile time. Which means that should you change the code of the inlined function, you would need to recompile all the code using it to be sure it will be updated (for the same reason, I avoid default values for function parameters) When used in a header, it makes your header file larger, and thus, will dilute interesting informations (like the list of a class methods) with code the user don't care about (this is the reason that I declare inlined functions inside a class, but will define it in an header after the class body, and never inside the class body).

内联魔法

The compiler may or may not inline the functions you marked as inline; it may also decide to inline functions not marked as inline at compilation or linking time. Inline works like a copy/paste controlled by the compiler, which is quite different from a pre-processor macro: The macro will be forcibly inlined, will pollute all the namespaces and code, won't be easily debuggable, and will be done even if the compiler would have ruled it as inefficient. Every method of a class defined inside the body of the class itself is considered as "inlined" (even if the compiler can still decide to not inline it Virtual methods are not supposed to be inlinable. Still, sometimes, when the compiler can know for sure the type of the object (i.e. the object was declared and constructed inside the same function body), even a virtual function will be inlined because the compiler knows exactly the type of the object. Template methods/functions are not always inlined (their presence in an header will not make them automatically inline). The next step after "inline" is template metaprograming . I.e. By "inlining" your code at compile time, sometimes, the compiler can deduce the final result of a function... So a complex algorithm can sometimes be reduced to a kind of return 42 ; statement. This is for me extreme inlining. It happens rarely in real life, it makes compilation time longer, will not bloat your code, and will make your code faster. But like the grail, don't try to apply it everywhere because most processing cannot be resolved this way... Still, this is cool anyway...:-p

在古老的C和c++中，内联就像寄存器:给编译器一个关于可能的优化的建议(只不过是一个建议)。

在现代c++中，内联告诉链接器，如果在不同的翻译单元中发现了多个定义(不是声明)，那么它们都是相同的，链接器可以自由地保留其中一个，并丢弃所有其他的定义。

如果一个函数(无论多么复杂或“线性”)定义在头文件中，内联是强制的，以允许多个源包含它而不会被链接器产生“多个定义”错误。

默认情况下，类内部定义的成员函数是“内联”的，模板函数也是如此(与全局函数相反)。

//fileA.h
inline void afunc()
{ std::cout << "this is afunc" << std::endl; }

//file1.cpp
#include "fileA.h"
void acall()
{ afunc(); }

//main.cpp
#include "fileA.h"
void acall();

int main()
{ 
   afunc(); 
   acall();
}

//output
this is afunc
this is afunc

注意fileA.h包含在两个.cpp文件中，导致两个afunc()实例。 链接器将丢弃其中一个。 如果没有指定inline，链接器将报错。