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author | Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi> | 2001-09-12 17:41:49 +0000 |
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committer | Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi> | 2001-09-12 17:41:49 +0000 |
commit | 3d4a255cbdf51bdaf16ab1a302f453e90e07602f (patch) | |
tree | 8f64863dea01c07d7cd32d64f54b6bd51ece572f /lib/Memoize.pm | |
parent | 9bf12eaf439552772b53d65e2dd335097dac1a84 (diff) | |
download | perl-3d4a255cbdf51bdaf16ab1a302f453e90e07602f.tar.gz |
Upgrade to Memoize 0.66.
p4raw-id: //depot/perl@12006
Diffstat (limited to 'lib/Memoize.pm')
-rw-r--r-- | lib/Memoize.pm | 105 |
1 files changed, 57 insertions, 48 deletions
diff --git a/lib/Memoize.pm b/lib/Memoize.pm index 219a0ff5e1..6907400e02 100644 --- a/lib/Memoize.pm +++ b/lib/Memoize.pm @@ -8,10 +8,10 @@ # same terms as Perl itself. If in doubt, # write to mjd-perl-memoize+@plover.com for a license. # -# Version 0.65 beta $Revision: 1.17 $ $Date: 2000/10/24 04:33:49 $ +# Version 0.66 $Revision: 1.18 $ $Date: 2001/06/24 17:16:47 $ package Memoize; -$VERSION = '0.65'; +$VERSION = '0.66'; # Compile-time constants sub SCALAR () { 0 } @@ -390,7 +390,7 @@ Options include: `Memoizing' a function makes it faster by trading space for time. It does this by caching the return values of the function in a table. If you call the function again with the same arguments, C<memoize> -jmups in and gives you the value out of the table, instead of letting +jumps in and gives you the value out of the table, instead of letting the function compute the value all over again. Here is an extreme example. Consider the Fibonacci sequence, defined @@ -551,13 +551,13 @@ might look like this: $hash{B} ||= 2; $hash{C} ||= 7; - join($;, $a, map ($_ => $hash{$_}) sort keys %hash); + join(',', $a, map ($_ => $hash{$_}) sort keys %hash); } Each of the argument lists above comes out of the C<normalize_f> function looking exactly the same, like this: - OUCH^\B^\2^\C^\7 + OUCH,B,2,C,7 You would tell C<Memoize> to use this normalizer this way: @@ -569,28 +569,28 @@ that it computed for one argument list and return it as the result of calling the function with the other argument list, even if the argument lists look different. -The default normalizer just concatenates the arguments with C<$;> in -between. This always works correctly for functions with only one -string argument, and also when the arguments never contain C<$;> -(which is normally character #28, control-\. ) However, it can -confuse certain argument lists: +The default normalizer just concatenates the arguments with character +28 in between. (In ASCII, this is called FS or control-\.) This +always works correctly for functions with only one string argument, +and also when the arguments never contain character 28. However, it +can confuse certain argument lists: normalizer("a\034", "b") normalizer("a", "\034b") normalizer("a\034\034b") -for example. +for example. Since hash keys are strings, the default normalizer will not distinguish between C<undef> and the empty string. It also won't work -when the function's arguments are references. For example, consider -a function C<g> which gets two arguments: A number, and a reference to +when the function's arguments are references. For example, consider a +function C<g> which gets two arguments: A number, and a reference to an array of numbers: g(13, [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]); The default normalizer will turn this into something like -C<"13\024ARRAY(0x436c1f)">. That would be all right, except that a +C<"13\034ARRAY(0x436c1f)">. That would be all right, except that a subsequent array of numbers might be stored at a different location even though it contains the same data. If this happens, C<Memoize> will think that the arguments are different, even though they are @@ -615,7 +615,7 @@ returns a value which depends on the current hour of the day: return $line; } -At 10:23, this function generates the tenth line of a data file; at +At 10:23, this function generates the 10th line of a data file; at 3:45 PM it generates the 15th line instead. By default, C<Memoize> will only see the $problem_type argument. To fix this, include the current hour in the normalizer: @@ -635,7 +635,7 @@ Normally, C<Memoize> caches your function's return values into an ordinary Perl hash variable. However, you might like to have the values cached on the disk, so that they persist from one run of your program to the next, or you might like to associate some other -interesting semantics with the cached values. +interesting semantics with the cached values. There's a slight complication under the hood of C<Memoize>: There are actually I<two> caches, one for scalar values and one for list values. @@ -650,7 +650,7 @@ the following four strings: MEMORY FAULT MERGE - HASH + HASH or else it must be a reference to a list whose first element is one of these four strings, such as C<[HASH, arguments...]>. @@ -677,7 +677,7 @@ complete details about C<tie>. A typical example is: - use DB_File; + use DB_File; tie my %cache => 'DB_File', $filename, O_RDWR|O_CREAT, 0666; memoize 'function', SCALAR_CACHE => [HASH => \%cache]; @@ -695,14 +695,14 @@ because all its results have been precomputed. This option is B<strongly deprecated> and will be removed in the B<next> release of C<Memoize>. Use the C<HASH> option instead. - memoize ... [TIE, ARGS...] + memoize ... [TIE, PACKAGE, ARGS...] is merely a shortcut for - tie my %cache, ARGS...; + require PACKAGE; + tie my %cache, PACKAGE, ARGS...; memoize ... [HASH => \%cache]; - =item C<FAULT> C<FAULT> means that you never expect to call the function in scalar @@ -737,12 +737,12 @@ caches the list C<(3)> in the list cache. The third call doesn't call the real C<pi> function; it gets the value from the scalar cache. Obviously, the second call to C<pi> is a waste of time, and storing -its return value is a waste of space. Specifying C<LIST_CACHE -=E<gt> MERGE> will make C<memoize> use the same cache for scalar and -list context return values, so that the second call uses the scalar -cache that was populated by the first call. C<pi> ends up being -cvalled only once, and both subsequent calls return C<3> from the -cache, regardless of the calling context. +its return value is a waste of space. Specifying C<LIST_CACHE =E<gt> +MERGE> will make C<memoize> use the same cache for scalar and list +context return values, so that the second call uses the scalar cache +that was populated by the first call. C<pi> ends up being called only +once, and both subsequent calls return C<3> from the cache, regardless +of the calling context. Another use for C<MERGE> is when you want both kinds of return values stored in the same disk file; this saves you from having to deal with @@ -783,8 +783,6 @@ without synchronizing the database. So what you can do instead is $SIG{INT} = sub { unmemoize 'function' }; -Thanks to Jonathan Roy for discovering a use for C<unmemoize>. - C<unmemoize> accepts a reference to, or the name of a previously memoized function, and undoes whatever it did to provide the memoized version in the first place, including making the name refer to the @@ -797,7 +795,7 @@ croaks. =head2 C<flush_cache> C<flush_cache(function)> will flush out the caches, discarding I<all> -the cached data. The argument may be a funciton name or a reference +the cached data. The argument may be a function name or a reference to a function. For finer control over when data is discarded or expired, see the documentation for C<Memoize::Expire>, included in this package. @@ -809,7 +807,7 @@ method, this will cause a run-time error. An alternative approach to cache flushing is to use the C<HASH> option (see above) to request that C<Memoize> use a particular hash variable as its cache. Then you can examine or modify the hash at any time in -any way you desire. +any way you desire. You may flush the cache by using C<%hash = ()>. =head1 CAVEATS @@ -955,6 +953,9 @@ function (or when your program exits): Include the `nstore' option to have the C<Storable> database written in `network order'. (See L<Storable> for more details about this.) +The C<flush_cache()> function will raise a run-time error unless the +tied package provides a C<CLEAR> method. + =head1 EXPIRATION SUPPORT See Memoize::Expire, which is a plug-in module that adds expiration @@ -968,21 +969,21 @@ is available on CPAN as Memoize::ExpireLRU. The test suite is much better, but always needs improvement. -There used to be some problem with the way C<goto &f> works under -threaded Perl, because of the lexical scoping of C<@_>. This is a bug -in Perl, and until it is resolved, Memoize won't work with these -Perls. This is probably still the case, although I have not been able -to try it out. If you encounter this problem, you can fix it by -chopping the source code a little. Find the comment in the source -code that says C<--- THREADED PERL COMMENT---> and comment out the -active line and uncomment the commented one. Then try it again. +There is some problem with the way C<goto &f> works under threaded +Perl, perhaps because of the lexical scoping of C<@_>. This is a bug +in Perl, and until it is resolved, memoized functions will see a +slightly different C<caller()> and will perform a little more slowly +on threaded perls than unthreaded perls. Here's a bug that isn't my fault: Some versions of C<DB_File> won't let you store data under a key of length 0. That means that if you have a function C<f> which you memoized and the cache is in a C<DB_File> database, then the value of C<f()> (C<f> called with no arguments) will not be memoized. Let us all breathe deeply and repeat -this mantra: ``Gosh, Keith, that sure was a stupid thing to do.'' +this mantra: ``Gosh, Keith, that sure was a stupid thing to do.'' If +this is a big problem, you can write a tied hash class which is a +front-end to C<DB_File> that prepends <x> to every key before storing +it. =head1 MAILING LIST @@ -1000,33 +1001,40 @@ memoization and about the internals of Memoize that appeared in The Perl Journal, issue #13. (This article is also included in the Memoize distribution as `article.html'.) +My upcoming book will discuss memoization (and many other fascinating +topics) in tremendous detail. It will be published by Morgan Kaufmann +in 2002, possibly under the title I<Perl Advanced Techniques +Handbook>. It will also be available on-line for free. For more +information, visit http://perl.plover.com/book/ . + To join a mailing list for announcements about C<Memoize>, send an empty message to C<mjd-perl-memoize-request@plover.com>. This mailing list is for announcements only and has extremely low traffic---about -four messages per year. +two messages per year. =head1 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 by Mark Jason Dominus This library is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify -it under the same terms as Perl itself. +it under the same terms as Perl itself. =head1 THANK YOU Many thanks to Jonathan Roy for bug reports and suggestions, to Michael Schwern for other bug reports and patches, to Mike Cariaso for helping me to figure out the Right Thing to Do About Expiration, to -Joshua Gerth, Joshua Chamas, Jonathan Roy, Mark D. Anderson, and -Andrew Johnson for more suggestions about expiration, to Brent Powers -for the Memoize::ExpireLRU module, to Ariel Scolnicov for delightful -messages about the Fibonacci function, to Dion Almaer for +Joshua Gerth, Joshua Chamas, Jonathan Roy (again), Mark D. Anderson, +and Andrew Johnson for more suggestions about expiration, to Brent +Powers for the Memoize::ExpireLRU module, to Ariel Scolnicov for +delightful messages about the Fibonacci function, to Dion Almaer for thought-provoking suggestions about the default normalizer, to Walt Mankowski and Kurt Starsinic for much help investigating problems under threaded Perl, to Alex Dudkevich for reporting the bug in prototyped functions and for checking my patch, to Tony Bass for many -helpful suggestions, to Philippe Verdret for enlightening discussion -of Hook::PrePostCall, to Nat Torkington for advice I ignored, to Chris +helpful suggestions, to Jonathan Roy (again) for finding a use for +C<unmemoize()>, to Philippe Verdret for enlightening discussion of +C<Hook::PrePostCall>, to Nat Torkington for advice I ignored, to Chris Nandor for portability advice, to Randal Schwartz for suggesting the 'C<flush_cache> function, and to Jenda Krynicky for being a light in the world. @@ -1034,4 +1042,5 @@ the world. Special thanks to Jarkko Hietaniemi, the 5.8.0 pumpking, for including this module in the core and for his patient and helpful guidance during the integration process. + =cut |