Re: Disk-based or db-based associative array -- good or bad?

[Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>]

William Park wrote:
> I just wanted to ask shell experts here.  Is disk-based associative
> array a good thing to have for a shell?  That is, reading and writing
> like normal in-memory array, ie
>     typeset -A var
>     var[aa]='bb'
>     echo ${var[aa]}
> except that 'aa':'bb' key:value will be written to and read from db file
> (either Gdbm or Berkeley BD) on disk.

As an add-on module this would be a very good thing to have.  It would
fit in well with existing modules such as zsh/parameter and zsh/mapfile.

One problem at present is we don't have a way of associating a parameter
with a particular implementation.  I think something from ksh93 would do
this.  Otherwise we can define some `tie'-like syntax for typeset.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
CSR Ltd., Science Park, Milton Road,
Cambridge, CB4 0WH, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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