Common questions

Can memcpy overlap?

Can memcpy overlap?

The memory in memcpy cannot overlap or you risk undefined behaviour, while the memory in memmove can overlap. Some implementations of memcpy might still work for overlapping inputs but you cannot count of that behaviour.

Is memcpy faster than Memmove?

When running memcpy twice, then the second run is faster than the first one. When “touching” the destination buffer of memcpy ( memset(b2, 0, BUFFERSIZE…) ) then the first run of memcpy is also faster. memcpy is still a little bit slower than memmove.

What is the difference between memcpy and Memmove?

Answer: memcpy() function is is used to copy a specified number of bytes from one memory to another. memmove() function is used to copy a specified number of bytes from one memory to another or to overlap on same memory.

How long is memcpy?

I am running a math-oriented computation that spends a significant amount of its time doing memcpy , always copying 80 bytes from one location to the next, an array of 20 32-bit int s. The total computation takes around 4-5 days using both cores of my i7, so even a 1% speedup results in about an hour saved.

Why is memcpy slow?

I also had some code that I really needed to speed up, and memcpy is slow because it has too many unnecessary checks. For example, it checks to see if the destination and source memory blocks overlap and if it should start copying from the back of the block rather than the front.

Is memcpy slow?

memcpy is usually naive – certainly not the slowest way to copy memory around, but usually quite easy to beat with some loop unrolling, and you can go even further with assembler.

Is memcpy destructive?

memcpy() function is is used to copy a specified number of bytes from one memory to another. memmove() function is used to copy a specified number of bytes from one memory to another or to overlap on same memory. Whereas, memory overlap won’t happen in memcpy() and it should be done in non-destructive way.

Does std :: copy use memcpy?

Always use std::copy because memcpy is limited to only C-style POD structures, and the compiler will likely replace calls to std::copy with memcpy if the targets are in fact POD. Plus, std::copy can be used with many iterator types, not just pointers.

When to use safer variants in memcpy buffer overflow?

The compiler uses the safer variants when it can deduce the destination buffer size. If the copy would exceed the destination buffer size, then the program calls abort (). If the compiler cannot deduce the destination buffer size, then the “safer” variants are not used.

Is it safe to call memcpy when there is not enough space?

Do not call memcpy () if there is not enough space in the target buffer for all the data you want to copy from the source buffer. (You have to decide whether it is OK to truncate the data if the source is bigger than the target.) If you don’t know, rewrite the code so that you do know how much space there is; otherwise, it is not safe.

Is there a safer string function for memcpy?

On Apple and BSD, you have don’t have a “safer” function for memcpy. But you do have safer string functions like strlcpy, strlcat and friends. On Linux, your fourth choice is to use FORTIFY_SOURCE.

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Ruth Doyle