Re: Re: A memory efficient hash, trading off speed

Well, but then you run into the problem of if you want to use a colon or a pipe in one of your keys or values. I would immagine it would also be quite a bit slower for large amounts of key/value pairs than using a real hash.

Comment on Re: Re: A memory efficient hash, trading off speed - does it already exist?

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Re: Re: Re: A memory efficient hash, trading off speed - does it already exist? by Wysardry (Pilgrim) on Feb 04, 2003 at 02:05 UTC
That's why I said that any separating characters could be used, meaning that ones that didn't clash could be picked. As a Perl program would most likely be used to convert the existing hashes, characters not normally directly accessible on the keyboard (above ASCII 127) could be used. The original poster also stated that speed wasn't an issue. It wouldn't be practical for every application, but might work in this instance. A similar method was used by several text adventure games on machines with limited memory or no array facilities.	[reply]

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Re: Re: Re: A memory efficient hash, trading off speed - does it already exist?
by Wysardry (Pilgrim) on Feb 04, 2003 at 02:05 UTC

That's why I said that any separating characters could be used, meaning that ones that didn't clash could be picked. As a Perl program would most likely be used to convert the existing hashes, characters not normally directly accessible on the keyboard (above ASCII 127) could be used.

The original poster also stated that speed wasn't an issue.

It wouldn't be practical for every application, but might work in this instance. A similar method was used by several text adventure games on machines with limited memory or no array facilities.

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