Nope. You're example is flawed. Modern compilers are quite smart, and I think that copying 3 ints will take the same amount of time as copying 2 or 4. In other words, the compilers are smart enough to optimize a lot of this "copying". Which is why I said that I don't like generalizations like this. Code first, optimize later. We're not working with tube computers and punch cards anymore.

Viggy