On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Sean O'Rourke wrote: : On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Larry Wall wrote: : > But if a fast implementation needs to keep pointers into a string : > rather than offsets from the beginning, we're asking for core dumps if : > the string is modified out from under the pointers, or we have to : > adjust all known pointers any time the string may be modified. : : With the current Parrot GC, keeping pointers into the string while doing : unrelated allocation will get you a core dump, since the string body might : be copied. So unless the regex engine copies strings off into its own : private non-collected storage, we're stuck with offsets anyways.
That's fine, if it's a constraint. I had thought perhaps COW would allow a locked-down copy to work with without forcing unnecessary copying, but I suppose it doesn't hook into GC at that level. I'd also hoped it would solve any $&-style inefficiencies. But hey, that's not my job this time around... :-) Larry
