Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!microsoft!jimad
From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim Adcock)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: class "names" at runtime (was Re: Design Problem)
Message-ID: <10@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 19 Dec 89 00:00:15 GMT
References: <22137@brunix.UUCP> <3164@cbnewsl.ATT.COM> <4329@pegasus.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim Adcock)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 11

One trick [from ObjC - gack!] is to maintain your names as pointers to
strings to begin with, but when you access that pointer the first time
you [automagically] change it to a handle for an entry in a lookup table.  
Since the table is a limited range of addresses, it is quick and easy to 
see if the conversion has already been done, and assuming it has been done, 
the comparison is just a pointer compare.  Since the entry in the table
is a string with the same characters, when you go back to a flat representation
of your object, you automatically change it back to a string representation
again.  The cost is a couple extra pointer checks to see if the string
is in the table [yet] or not.  Alternately maintain a hash of the string
and compare that.