OpenEuphoria

RE: Referencing Nested Sequences

• Posted by Andy Serpa <ac at onehorseshy.com> Jun 08, 2003
• 477 views

Derek Parnell wrote:
> 
> item
> > that is part of a larger item,  generally rearrange items in a sequence 
> > -
> where
> > each of these items might be a nested sequence.
> >
> > Would this result in is that large 'copying tasks' for  each 
> > rearrangement
> ? -
> 
> Not really. If I understand this ( Robert Craig - can you confirm this?)
> correctly, altering an element inside a sequence does not mean that the
> entire sequence is copied to a new RAM location. Internally, a sequence 
> uses
> pointers to data, like a handle. This, combined with reference counting 
> and
> garbage collection, means that manipulating a sequence's contents is not 
> all
> that inefficient.
> 

It depends what you're doing.  Most sequence operations are fast, but if 
you take a nested sequence and iteratively grow the inner sequences your 
program can slow to a crawl (if it is BIG sequence), and you might have 
to switch to a less intuitive algorithm to get good efficiency.  There 
is "always a way" though, but sometimes you've got rewrite it a few 
times....