OpenEuphoria

Re: Why are my maps chewing on my RAM? or, Adventures in memory (de)allocation

• Posted by ghaberek (admin) Sep 09, 2019
• 1077 views

You're not wrong, and that's how previous user-contributed implementations have worked. For example...

sequence table = map_new( 256 ) -- number of buckets 
 
table = map_insert( table, "key", "value" ) -- insert data, return updated sequence 
 
object value = map_fetch( table, "key" ) -- fetch stored data from the sequence 

The goal of the eumem library, and its use in maps and stacks is allow pass-by-reference instead of requiring pass-by-value.

map table = map:new() -- 'table' is a reference to the eumem:ram_space sequence 
 
map:put( table, "key", "value" ) -- notice there is no return value here 
 
object value = map:get( table, "key" ) -- this is pretty much the same 

I think there's an advantage to be had in not having to pass-by-value everything. This method, IMHO, makes for cleaner and easier to understand code.

But, like with any other language that deals with passing references, keeping track of when things can be freed becomes an additional burden.

-Greg