KIconLoader Optimization Idea

[Alexander Neundorf]

Hi, 

On Monday 06 June 2005 19:03, Simon Perreault wrote:
> On Monday 06 June 2005 12:15, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> > Using an icon server and sockets or pipes to communicate with it and
> > transfer the icons through them will be slower than just reading the
> > files from disk.
>
> Are you sure about that?

If you communicate via a socket you have a protocol which has to be 
interpreted, the data has to be serialized and deserialized and task switches 
happen.

> > Shared memory is probably faster, nevertheless you have to talk
> > to the server so that it can actually load the icon.
>
> There is no server when using shared memory.

So who loads the icons into memory ?
Either a server which you ask "please give me the location of icon XXX in 
shared mem" or the individual applications. Still the access to the shared 
memory has to be synchronized then. Maybe this would be worth a try. Please 
search the mailing lists for this exact problem. I think Waldo Bastian posted 
some numbers.
I also investigated icon loading maybe 4 years ago, and one problem I found 
was the big number of locations where icons are searched.
Run strace on a kde app (e.g. konqy) and check out in how many places for the 
icon is tested. 
It would be cool if you can come up with a nice improvement :-)

Bye
Alex
-- 
Work: alexander.neundorf at jenoptik.com - http://www.jenoptik-los.de
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