The Swift Flavour of Free Pascal might increase the responsiveness of some Free Pascal built applications. The homepage is at
www.lag.coolpage.biz/index_it_fcs_swift.htmlIn order to apply(install) the Swift flavour for Free Pascal, the following steps are recommended:
1) Check that you have a sane working environment by recompiling Free Pascal clean.
2) Download the archive containing the flavouring file from
www.lag.coolpage.biz/downloads/fcs_fpc_swift.7z and the archive containing the F.C.S. console clients from
www.lag.coolpage.biz/downloads/fcsconsole.7z. Extract the content of the two archives in a temporary directory.
3) Apply(Install) the flavour by executing:
fcsconsole fpc_swift.fcs APPLY 'MACRO{MACRO_FPC_DIRECTORY}=fpc_directory'
where "fpc_directory", directory that contains source files, looks like "c:\freepascal\" or "/home/user/fpc/"
"./fcsconsole_linux_x86_64 fpc_swift.fcs APPLY 'MACRO{MACRO_FPC_DIRECTORY}=/home/user/fpc/" is an example for a linux user.
4) Rebuild Free Pascal to make sure everything appears to be fine.
5) Rebuild all your programs using the flavoured Free Pascal.
Notes:
If things appear to be slower make sure you've not rebuilt using a lower optimizations level. For example, your original executable file was built with level 3 optimizations, you modify the source files through flavouring and you rebuild with level 1 optimizations.
The flavour can be removed(uninstalled) by executing: fcsconsole fpc_swift.fcs REVERSE 'MACRO{MACRO_FPC_DIRECTORY}=fpc_directory'
The quotes(') of the MACRO parameter are useful when the fpc_directory contains spaces.
Additional information can be obtained by executing:
fcsconsole fpc_swift.fcs showuserinfo
Years ago I've started looking at Free Pascal's source code. During this time I've modified a couple of routines. Most of the modifications are local optimizations with no measurable speed increase on my computer. I maintain this flavour because it's involved in the development of other projects.