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- To: "Nic Ferrier" <nferrier at tapsellferrier dot co dot uk>
- Subject: Association lists
- From: "Brian D. Carlstrom" <bdc at zurich dot ai dot mit dot edu>
- Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 11:13:12 -0700
- Cc: kawa at sourceware dot cygnus dot com
- References: <s952560f.029@tapsellferrier.co.uk>
- Reply-To: "Brian D. Carlstrom" <bdc at ai dot mit dot edu>
Nic Ferrier writes:
> Scheme supports hash operations on lists to allows lists to be treated
> as hash tables.
Associative arrays are not hashtables, although they have a similar
API, because their performance is not equivilent
> I was wondering: do most Scheme implementations optimize lists that
> are used as hashes into real hashes?
I think most Scheme implementations provide real hashs as a seperate
non-standard extensions. I know scheme 48 does, and my personal scheme
in java just allows people to use Java Hashtables.
I don't think the compiler can lexically determine the usage of a hash to
see that it is never used as a list.
-bri