Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Flattening C++ Classes, Umesh Bellur, Al Villarica, Kevin Shank, Imram Bashir, Doug Lea

Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering

Inheritance with derived classes and virtual functions are key design concepts in C++. Despite this, their use can result in significant degradation of run time performance. We present a class flattening tool, which we believe will help eliminate the overhead associated with virtual functions in C++ programs. A flattener may also prove useful in the reuse, debugging, and understanding of C++ components. This report deals with the issues associated with flattening, and then presents a detailed design of such a tool.