Property Vectors and Hashing
Like Qi, Shen includes property lists. However they are not implemented using CL property lists,
but instead rely on a hashing function into a standard vector *property-vector* which is internal
to the Shen package and by default set to hold 20,000 elements.
The expression '(put Mark sex male)' creates a pointer 'sex' from 'Mark' to the object 'male'. The
expression '(get Mark sex)' retrieves 'male'. If no pointer exists from the object then get returns
an error.
The functions 'put' and 'get' index into the vector by converting their first argument A into a
number via the hashing function (see below). This hashing function h may be a many-one function, hence
*property-vector* is a vector of lists and a list search is used at position (h A) in V to
locate the correct value. This function is subject to any improvements and changes that are consistent
with the language specification (see optimising the system functions in the document on porting).
In Qi, 'get-prop' was a 3-place function (get-prop X P Y) where the third argument was returned
if no pointer P existed from X. In Shen, if no pointer exists then an error is returned. Using
exception handling, assuming X and P are well-defined, 'get-prop' is easily defined in Shen.
(get-prop X P Y) = (trap-error (get X P) (/. E Y))
Unline CL, arguments to 'get' and 'put' can be objects of any type provided their constituents are
representable within the default string set. If the hash value (h A) of the argument A exceeds
the limit of the property list vector, the modulus M of (h A) to the size of the vector is taken
and the data is placed in the Mth address of the vector.
'put' and 'get' are actually polyadic functions which appear as such by the grace of the Shen reader.
There is an optional final argument which should be a standard vector; thus '(put Mark sex male
(value *myvector*))' will use the vector *myvector* as the hashing table. If the optional argument
is missing then *property-vector* is used.
In version 17 'unput' was introduced which cancels the effect of put. '(unput Mark sex)' will remove
the pointer. Again this function allows for an optional vector argument which defaults unless
specified otherwise to the property vector.
The hash function 'hash' takes as arguments a Shen object X and a positive number N (which need not be whole)
and returns a number M between zero and N, where M represents the hash value of X within that interval. |
