I'm not sure why you need to increment the ref count. Could you explain the reason?

See the discussion in this thread at Re^6: Techniques On Saving Memory. Basically, if you take a smashed reference, perl doesn't know you have it, so by the time you get to unsmash it, the thing you took a reference too could have been GC'd. If the refcount was (optionally) increased when a smashed refence was taken, and decremented when it was unsmashed, it would appear like an ordinary reference had been taken and GCing would be delayed.

I still have doubts about how this would interact with other things, especially threads and shared vars, but if all that functionality was wrapped in a single place, it might at least allow the idea to be tested.

It's already possible to do all of that using bist a pieces from half a dozen existing modules, but it would be useful to get it all from one.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
Silence betokens consent.
Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco.

In reply to Re^6: Techniques On Saving Memory by BrowserUk
in thread Techniques On Saving Memory by Limbic~Region

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