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

[Chet Ramey]

On 4/20/20 5:12 PM, George Jones wrote:
> No real opinion on syntax.
> 
> Using something existing:
> 
>     declare -A foo[SIZE]
> 
> seems sensible, especially if there was no semantic meaning (I'm not a fan
> of syntax without semantics .... clutter).

It's been there forever for ksh88 compatibility, but bash doesn't use it
for anything (and I suspect ksh93 doesn't either).

> Big thing is that the new stuff for fringe new pathologic use cases (mine)
> should not have negative impact (huge buffer preallocation) on the existing
> ?30 years? of users/scripts.

I don't think there are very many, if any, scripts out there using that
syntax. It's never had any semantic meaning.

> Some docs on how the SIZE is used (hint for preallocation of hash table
> size, not hard limit on number of entries) probably also in order.

Sure, if the size argument ever meant something, I would document it. :-)

Chet

-- 
``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/