Assuming that this comes with some improvement for s: then it would be easy to favour that improvement.
things not to like about a global symbol table is that every typo is included, and any "app"/set that is loaded joins that table. AFAIU, Corruption happens if you create symbols, and then restore a table with 10&s:, and so any application that relies on 10&s: can crash another previously "loaded application" A problem is that 3!:1, or 3!:3 anyway, seems to just store indexes for symbols, which relies on 10 s: for actual persistence. A suggestion for 3!:1 of symbols would be to scan the array containing symbols for null (\0), then store 2&s: if not included, or 5&s: if there is a \0. AFAIU, utf8 is safe to not include 0 as an extended byte. An alternative to 5&s: would be a new 8&s: where "data nulls" are encodes similar to embedded ' in strings. double nullchars encode a data nullchar. single nullchar encodes terminating 2&s: nullchar. This format c/would be used for 3!:1. 2&s: could be modified to be the 8&s: proposal. 10&s: could store in this new format for portability. But the problem of previously assigned symbols in session persists, and so a locale level symbol table would make the most sense for robustness. Also, an "application"/locale that just uses `true`false symbols (bad example but replace with small set of enums), would (presumably) be faster if it didn't share a symbol table with a very large symbol array principally used to avoid string fills. A question about symbols/3!:1... the documentation suggests that indexes are limited to 32bit values. Is that true for j64 too? Query (new) and query (old) is not completely clear in documentation either, and does that differ from i. or e. ? ________________________________ From: Henry Rich <[email protected]> To: Programming forum <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2017 12:14 AM Subject: [Jprogramming] Show cause hearing - (10 s: y) Does anyone use (10 s: y)? It is problematic in that the hash table (0 s: 4) may depend on the CPU and the J release level. I would rather decommit (10 s: y) and have the user reload the symbol table de novo. Any objections? Henry Rich ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
