Where can I find the world's fastest atof implementation?

Question

I\'m looking for an extremely fast atof() implementation on IA32 optimized for US-en locale, ASCII, and non-scientific notation. The windows multithreaded CRT falls down misera

Answer 1

I've implemented something you may find useful. In comparison with atof it's about x5 faster and if used with __forceinline about x10 faster. Another nice thing is that it seams to have exactly same arithmetic as crt implementation. Of course it has some cons too:

• it supports only single precision float,
• and doesn't scan any special values like #INF, etc...

__forceinline bool float_scan(const wchar_t* wcs, float* val)
{
int hdr=0;
while (wcs[hdr]==L' ')
    hdr++;

int cur=hdr;

bool negative=false;
bool has_sign=false;

if (wcs[cur]==L'+' || wcs[cur]==L'-')
{
    if (wcs[cur]==L'-')
        negative=true;
    has_sign=true;
    cur++;
}
else
    has_sign=false;

int quot_digs=0;
int frac_digs=0;

bool full=false;

wchar_t period=0;
int binexp=0;
int decexp=0;
unsigned long value=0;

while (wcs[cur]>=L'0' && wcs[cur]<=L'9')
{
    if (!full)
    {
        if (value>=0x19999999 && wcs[cur]-L'0'>5 || value>0x19999999)
        {
            full=true;
            decexp++;
        }
        else
            value=value*10+wcs[cur]-L'0';
    }
    else
        decexp++;

    quot_digs++;
    cur++;
}

if (wcs[cur]==L'.' || wcs[cur]==L',')
{
    period=wcs[cur];
    cur++;

    while (wcs[cur]>=L'0' && wcs[cur]<=L'9')
    {
        if (!full)
        {
            if (value>=0x19999999 && wcs[cur]-L'0'>5 || value>0x19999999)
                full=true;
            else
            {
                decexp--;
                value=value*10+wcs[cur]-L'0';
            }
        }

        frac_digs++;
        cur++;
    }
}

if (!quot_digs && !frac_digs)
    return false;

wchar_t exp_char=0;

int decexp2=0; // explicit exponent
bool exp_negative=false;
bool has_expsign=false;
int exp_digs=0;

// even if value is 0, we still need to eat exponent chars
if (wcs[cur]==L'e' || wcs[cur]==L'E')
{
    exp_char=wcs[cur];
    cur++;

    if (wcs[cur]==L'+' || wcs[cur]==L'-')
    {
        has_expsign=true;
        if (wcs[cur]=='-')
            exp_negative=true;
        cur++;
    }

    while (wcs[cur]>=L'0' && wcs[cur]<=L'9')
    {
        if (decexp2>=0x19999999)
            return false;
        decexp2=10*decexp2+wcs[cur]-L'0';
        exp_digs++;
        cur++;
    }

    if (exp_negative)
        decexp-=decexp2;
    else
        decexp+=decexp2;
}

// end of wcs scan, cur contains value's tail

if (value)
{
    while (value<=0x19999999)
    {
        decexp--;
        value=value*10;
    }

    if (decexp)
    {
        // ensure 1bit space for mul by something lower than 2.0
        if (value&0x80000000)
        {
            value>>=1;
            binexp++;
        }

        if (decexp>308 || decexp<-307)
            return false;

        // convert exp from 10 to 2 (using FPU)
        int E;
        double v=pow(10.0,decexp);
        double m=frexp(v,&E);
        m=2.0*m;
        E--;
        value=(unsigned long)floor(value*m);

        binexp+=E;
    }

    binexp+=23; // rebase exponent to 23bits of mantisa


    // so the value is: +/- VALUE * pow(2,BINEXP);
    // (normalize manthisa to 24bits, update exponent)
    while (value&0xFE000000)
    {
        value>>=1;
        binexp++;
    }
    if (value&0x01000000)
    {
        if (value&1)
            value++;
        value>>=1;
        binexp++;
        if (value&0x01000000)
        {
            value>>=1;
            binexp++;
        }
    }

    while (!(value&0x00800000))
    {
        value<<=1;
        binexp--;
    }

    if (binexp<-127)
    {
        // underflow
        value=0;
        binexp=-127;
    }
    else
    if (binexp>128)
        return false;

    //exclude "implicit 1"
    value&=0x007FFFFF;

    // encode exponent
    unsigned long exponent=(binexp+127)<<23;
    value |= exponent;
}

// encode sign
unsigned long sign=negative<<31;
value |= sign;

if (val)
{
    *(unsigned long*)val=value;
}

return true;
}