Re: Frozen sequences
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At 02:06 a.m. 29-01-99 +0000, you wrote: <br>
<font face="Courier New, Courier"><blockquote type=cite cite>I just got
this idea, and I want to here some opinions about it. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times">I understand that one problem
with sequences is that they support <br>
dynamical memory allocation even when this is not required or <br>
even wanted, since it slows down things. <br>
<br>
What about creating a 'freeze' feature which turns ordinary <br>
sequences into variable structures with a fixed size and <br>
shape? Eight bytes could be reserved for all atoms in the <br>
sequence, to avoid the need for reallocation of memory <br>
if for instance an integer turns into floating point. <br>
<br>
Note that only the structure of the sequnce is frozen, not <br>
the values of its atoms, which can be changed as usual. <br>
<br>
Any attempt to append, prepend or redifine the frozen <br>
sequence in any way would result in an error and the program <br>
would be terminated. <br>
<br>
Of course, the sequence could also be unfrozen when <br>
dynamic shrinking and growing is required again. <br>
<br>
Would this speed things up, and if so; how much? </blockquote><br>
<br>
That's the whole point.<br>
<br>
What Ralf and others (me included) would like to see is a way to
have<br>
a static (fixed bounds) data object. This "freezed" sequence is
usually<br>
called an array on most programming languages. The
"unfreeze"<br>
funcitonality ain't required (and superflous), because then you get<br>
a standard Euphoria sequence. Each element of this freezed sequence<br>
can be either an Atom or a Sequence (or a freezed sequence).<br>
<br>
The namespace is the way the interpreter manages indentifiers
(constants,<br>
variables, function, types, etc..) and how they get in/out of
scope.<br>
Currently Euphoria namespace is very limited: your identifiers are<br>
confined to the routine/include they are defined or are global to the
whole<br>
application. In large proyects this guarantees name conflict.<br>
<br>
</font>
<BR>
<div>Regards,</div>
Berstein</div>
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