Richard, I think your explanation of how arrays stored in cprops are translated back and forth between internal and external storage explains the the performance differences in Mark's tests.
I am curious though about your comment on storing multi-dimensional arrays in cProps. Are you saying it's not possible to store multi-dimensaional arrays in cProps? I was hoping to do that in a project I'm about to start on. Pete lcSQL Software <http://www.lcsql.com> On Sun, Mar 3, 2013 at 5:27 PM, Richard Gaskin <ambassa...@fourthworld.com>wrote: > It seems there are two types of arrays storable in LC props, what I like > to call "Natural" and "Unnatural": > > "Natural" arrays are one-dimensional, and fit into the traditional view of > custom props as having one or more property sets, each of which is > comprised of properties, each of which has a key and a value. > > "Unnatural" arrays are what you have when you story any array into a > custom property value. I haven't fully tested this theory out, but it > seems to be that when you store an array into a custom property the engine > first runs it through arrayEncode, and to access it uses arrayDecode, both > of which are notoriously slow operations since they require iterating > through the complete structure to translate it from the > RAM-address-optimized version of the array in memory and it's simpler > linear structure for storage. > > The difference between the two is why some of the array syntax like "get > myArray[key1][key2]" can't be used with arrays stored in custom props, > because in actuality the custom property is only one level deep, and > anything deeper is emulated through arrayEncode/arrayDecode. > > Given this, though I don't have my benchmarks with me at the moment, I > believe that if you can fit the data you need into the "natural" array > storage of custom properties and property sets, and use "the customkeys" to > access those directly from the object record, you should see the most > minimal impact on both execution time and memory space. > > -- > Richard Gaskin > Fourth World Systems > Software Design and Development for Desktop, Mobile, and Web > ______________________________**______________________________ > ambassa...@fourthworld.com http://www.FourthWorld.com > > > > ______________________________**_________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/**mailman/listinfo/use-livecode<http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode> > _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
