Re: symbol managment in Caml

[skaller <skaller@maxtal.com.au>]

Stephan Houben wrote:
> 
> Hello list,
> 
> I am writing an interpreter for a simple language in O'Caml.
> The interpreter often needs to search a hash table with a string
> as key. A common optimization for this is to use pointer identity
> instead of string equality, and "intern" every string before using
> it as a key to the hash table.
> 
> Unfortunately, I don't see how to do this with the current O'Caml
> libs. You can do identity checks with ==, but there seems no way
> to get a good hash corresponding to ==.
> 
> Has anyone already written some code for this task?

No, but may I suggest using a hashtable of references to strings?
The compiler will also need to keep a separate set of strings,
which the hash table entries reference. I'd be interested in a
performance
comparison (since I have a similar interpreter :-)

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John (Max) Skaller, mailto:skaller@maxtal.com.au
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