If you look at the implementation of FlushInstructionCache on Windows 95, you’ll see that it’s just a return instruction. It doesn’t actually do anything. So why do you have to call it?
Because the act of calling it is the whole point. The control transfers implicit in calling a function suffice to flush the instruction cache on a Pentium. The function doesn’t have to do anything else; it is fact that you called a function that is important.
Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.
0 comments