Advantages
The major advantage of tagged pointers is that they take up less space than a pointer along with a separate tag field. This can be especially important when a pointer is a return value from a function. It can also be important in large tables of pointers.
A more subtle advantage is that by storing a tag in the same place as the pointer, it is often possible to guarantee the atomicity of an operation that updates both the pointer and its tag without external synchronization mechanisms. This can be an extremely large performance gain, especially in operating systems.
Read more about this topic: Tagged Pointer
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel.... Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“There are great advantages to seeing yourself as an accident created by amateur parents as they practiced. You then have been left in an imperfect state and the rest is up to you. Only the most pitifully inept child requires perfection from parents.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war?—not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)