Re: [PATCH] Implement rehashing for associative arrays (Re: speeding up hash_search?)

[Chet Ramey]

On 4/20/20 11:16 AM, George Jones wrote:
> No problem.   Glad you fixed it.   It's been a LONG time since I've
> actually written C, so probably best if someone current did it.
> 
> On the parameters, I suggest you consider exposing the at user level as a
> switch or env var.   My use case was pathologically large (and would have
> been better on, e.g. Spark if that were and option in the environment).
>  Even the old behavior was probably good enough for most people.  It's only
> when you start abusing bash to to "big data" that the problem shows up.

I've been considering how to provide a way to let users indicate the size
of an array when they declare it. `declare' accepts `declare -a name[size]'
and `declare -A name[size]' for compatibility with ksh, but has never done
anything with `size'.

I could see allowing a number, or maybe an arithmetic expression, for SIZE
to set the initial size of an associative array. Or maybe an additional
option to `declare' would work better. I don't like using a shell variable
for this.

What does the group think?

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/