Re: etymology of obarray

["Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com>]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Joe Riel <joer@san.rr.com> writes:
>
>> Where does the word obarray originate?  What is "ob"?
>
> Object, perhaps? Just a guess, but if you are

Yes, Object Array.

It already existed in MACLISP:
 http://www.maclisp.info/pitmanual/symbol.html

Originally, in LISP 1.5, it was an OBLIST.
cf. page 12 of http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf

And in LISP 1.5 we have those occurences of OBLIST:

grep -niH -e oblist lisp15.asm
lisp15.asm:1531:       AXC     OBLIST,2           POINTER TO OBJECT LIST
lisp15.asm:1534:       RNT     DEBUGI             SKIP MARKING OBLIST IF IN A DEBUG
lisp15.asm:8871:OBLIST SYN     BUCKET
lisp15.asm:8951:               OBLBA,,-*-1        OBLIST OBJECT                         GENER068
lisp15.asm:9921:               -OBLIST                                                  GPLI0823
lisp15.asm:9923:               -*-1               OBLIST                                GPLI0825

> interested in the obarray in general I remember asking
> about it way back - because as I recall, the
> documentation was cryptic to say the least - and there
> were some very advanced replies, as I remember. So hit
> the archives, look for Emanuel Berg and "obarray" in
> the Subject header. Report back everything you learn :)
>
> As I recall, the obarray is a data structure (some kind
> of hash table) to store stuff dynamically (i.e., not
> just in memory) so that you can filter and do stuff
> with it - for example, to provide the set of operands
> possible after you invoke a command.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__
http://www.informatimago.com/
"Le mercure monte ?  C'est le moment d'acheter !"