About Intrinsic Functions

Microsoft® Windows® CE .NET provides intrinsic function support for many assembler instructions that you can access through inline assembly. Because the compiler recognizes the intrinsic function, it is able to replace the code with the appropriate assembler instruction without losing any optimizing capability. In contrast, the optimizer typically skips all inline assembly code, often resulting in slower overall code speed. Using intrinsic functions to access assembly instructions instead of inline assembly will result in code that can still be fully optimized by the compiler.

The compilers offer two categories of intrinsic functions:

• Common intrinsics

  The compiler replaces a common intrinsic function with fully optimized code for all chip set architectures.

• Microprocessor-specific intrinsic functions

  ARM, Hitachi, and MIPS all support intrinsic functions unique to their respective microprocessor families, and sometimes support intrinsics unique to a particular architectures within a family. For example, there are several intrinsic functions specifically designed for the ARM Digital Signal Processing (DSP) microprocessor that take advantage of the particular features of that microprocessor.

See Also

About Supported Microprocessors | About Microprocessor Compilers | Common Intrinsic Functions | Microprocessor-specific Intrinsic Functions | Supported Microprocessor Families

 Last updated on Thursday, April 08, 2004

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