Re: Growable arrays?

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Daniel Hartwig <mandyke@gmail.com> writes:

> On 11 June 2012 20:20, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:
>>> P.S.: I still need to look at vlists.  They might already address this
>>>       issue, though I can't use them in Guile 1.8.
>>
>> No, the "immutable" angle would make them unsuitable again.
>
> Note that vlists are only immutable in the sense that you can not
> modify the value of a slot already allocated.

Which makes it useless here.

>> Scheme/Guile vectors are fixed size.  Now I have a situation where I
>> have a basic type lattice with records stored in vectors, and this type
>> lattice may be extended dynamically (which typically happens at the
>> start of a whole file, for potentially multi-file runs).
>
> From this I gather that your use case only appends to the lattice, if
> so, vlist is suitable for that task.

Wrong.  My use case only _allocates_ at the end of the existing type
lattice, but the records are not read-only.

>> Cough, cough.  Standard vectors are not growable.  Which is the
>> original problem of this thread, never mind Lua.
>
> True, but a growable vector is a tiny step away from the standard
> vector.

A tiny step if you are modifying the C code.  A not so tiny step if you
are working with Scheme.

>> hashtables have additional indirection
>> through hash buckets and coalescing lists
>
> This is fairly standard for a hash table.  I would be quite surprised
> if the hash table part of a Lua table did not also use buckets.

But it is not standard for a growable vector that it only comes with
buckets and chains.

>> Except that this one isn't.
>
> Why not?
>
> You take a vector and a hash table, store your values in them, and
> grow either as needed.  This is not a complicated type.

Except that vectors don't grow.  Are you even reading what you are
replying to?

-- 
David Kastrup