Re: [Caml-list] References, compact bollean values (and other questions)

[skaller <skaller@users.sourceforge.net>]

On Thu, 2005-11-03 at 18:20 -0600, Brian Hurt wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 3 Nov 2005, Seth J. Fogarty wrote:
> 
> > First question: I notice references are implemented using mutable
> > records. Does this imply tuples of references are slower than mutable
> > records?
> > I.E.
> > type a = int ref * int ref * int ref
> > vs
> > type a = {mutable a : int; mutable b : int; mutable c : int}
> 
> The mutable structure will almost certainly be less memory and faster. 
> The tuple of structures will be a tuple of three pointers to three 
> different mutable integers.  The structure will simply be three integers, 
> stored unboxed in the structure.

Yes but note it depends what you are doing.

A field is NOT a first class value. A reference is.
So if you use functional update to rebuild a record,
you are not tickling the write barrier -- true even
if a field is a reference.

So it depends what you are doing with these records, IMHO.

-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net