count of bits set in a long

[Sudheer Apte]

> From article <37545 at ut-emx.uucp>, by nwagner at ut-emx.uucp (Neal R. Wagner):
> > 
> >   I need a fast method to count the number of bits that are set in a 32-bit
> > integer on a Sun 3/80 running 4.0.3 SunOS. ...

jc at atcmp.nl (Jan Christiaan van Winkel) writes:

> [... a really neat iteration, one per bit at most, deleted ]

That was probably what Karl Heuer was talking about leaving for others.
I was thinking along these lines:

static int num_bits[256] = {0, 1, 1, 2, 1, ... /* etc. */ };

struct four_pack { char a; char b; char c; char d;};

int bit_count(i)
unsigned long i;
{
	struct four_pack f;
	f = (struct four_pack) i;
	return num_bits[f.a] + num_bits[f.b] + num_bits[f.c] +
		num_bits[f.d];
}

Would this be faster, in reality, than shifts and iteration? 

	Sudheer.
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