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AutoIt internal UBound chaching proposal


TheDcoder
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Hello! I have thought of this idea just now :). I would like to propose an idea today!

Its about caching the length of $aArrays or $mMaps! Since repeated use of UBound has its overhead, I would like to propose a method which cache's the length or size of List datatypes (That is what I classify Maps and Arrays under). Here is how it would work:

  1. Upon the first measurement of a List type variable, UBound will store the length of the variable along side its pointer in the cache (pointer for future referencing)
  2. UBound will check if the pointer already has a cache value associated with it, if yes, it Return the that value instead of recounting.
  3. ReDim will update the cache if it exists when resizing an Array. This step might be a little hard for maps, AutoIt would have to update the value of Maps everytime and element is added or removed using MapRemove.
  4. To prevent caching of Local variables after the scope has been destroyed, the cached value associated with the pointer will also be destroyed.

I might be a fool to think that its not implemented yet... but if has not, I have proposed it just now :).

 

Thanks for reading, what do you think of my proposal? :D

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In what circumstance is it necessary to repeatedly use UBound()?
In most of the applications I have written, which are mostly related to heavy data processing, The overhead of UBound is so small, as to be virtually unmeasurable.

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Since repeated use of UBound has its overhead

Please elaborate, It doesnt measure the ubound everytime around the loop, otherwise i wouldnt have to count backwards when deleting things. So the penalty would only ever be the initial determination of ubound.  Your solution brings about new penalties the beastly one being the logic that flags and persists when a variable has been measured.

,-. .--. ________ .-. .-. ,---. ,-. .-. .-. .-.
|(| / /\ \ |\ /| |__ __||| | | || .-' | |/ / \ \_/ )/
(_) / /__\ \ |(\ / | )| | | `-' | | `-. | | / __ \ (_)
| | | __ | (_)\/ | (_) | | .-. | | .-' | | \ |__| ) (
| | | | |)| | \ / | | | | | |)| | `--. | |) \ | |
`-' |_| (_) | |\/| | `-' /( (_)/( __.' |((_)-' /(_|
'-' '-' (__) (__) (_) (__)

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in general, whenever you think an operation takes too much time, consider yourself at liberty to cache it to a variable in your script. you don't need the AutoIt internals workings to accommodate that. i do that often when it comes to macro or registry reads, and of course when you perform any computation in a loop, when you know for a fact the computation result does not change during the loop.

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UDF:

LFN - support for long file names (over 260 characters)

InputImpose - impose valid characters in an input control

TimeConvert - convert UTC to/from local time and/or reformat the string representation

AMF - accept multiple files from Windows Explorer context menu

DateDuration -  literal description of the difference between given dates

Apps:

Touch - set the "modified" timestamp of a file to current time

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My guess is that an autoit array is a vector of its variant, therefore every time an operation occurs on it, the vector properties are updated, there will be no lengthy operation of looping and counting when retrieving Ubound();

 

Edited by JohnOne

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UBound is most likely a property of some internal container, hence already "cached" more efficiently than any other wrapper you would invent.

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A work-in-progress SQLite3 tutorial. Don't miss other LxyzTHW pages!
SQLite official website with full documentation (may be newer than the SQLite library that comes standard with AutoIt)

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9 hours ago, jchd said:

UBound is most likely a property of some internal container, hence already "cached" more efficiently than any other wrapper you would invent.

I would be relieved if this were the case :think:.

11 hours ago, Bowmore said:

In what circumstance is it necessary to repeatedly use UBound()?

Nice question. Like @orbs said, I would cache/store the length, but I am more focussing on a scenario where a UDF would have to use an extra element to store the value in it's return array (The classic example is StringSplit storing the number of elements in [0]).

I consider storing the number of elements/items/entries in the 1st element ([0]) as a bad practice, it has some programmatically dis-advantages (I think most of you will agree with me here). So I was thinking of not doing that if UBound cache's the length/size, as it would be easier and the length would not have to be a part of the array itself.

11 hours ago, orbs said:

in general, whenever you think an operation takes too much time, consider yourself at liberty to cache it to a variable in your script. you don't need the AutoIt internals workings to accommodate that.

Yes, that is what I do when I write a script or a program but as I have said in the above paragraph (in the reply to Bowmore):

Quote

but I am more focussing on a scenario where a UDF would have to use an extra element to store the value in it's return array

Hope you that you have got what I am trying to say here :D.

 

Anyway, as @JohnOne and @jchd speculated, it would nice if a developer would shed some light on the internal workings of Arrays and UBound :thumbsup:.

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4 hours ago, TheDcoder said:

I consider storing the number of elements/items/entries in the 1st element ([0]) as a bad practice, it has some programmatically dis-advantages (I think most of you will agree with me here).

a bit hasty conclusion i'd say. i can think of one notorious counter-example: FileReadToArray does not store the count of lines of a text file in element[0], which causes the absurd situation where the array element[1] actually contains text line #2, array element[2] actually contains text line #3, and so on. now tell me that makes sense to you.

(luckily, _FileReadToArray has a flag to control that behavior).

 

Signature - my forum contributions:

Spoiler

UDF:

LFN - support for long file names (over 260 characters)

InputImpose - impose valid characters in an input control

TimeConvert - convert UTC to/from local time and/or reformat the string representation

AMF - accept multiple files from Windows Explorer context menu

DateDuration -  literal description of the difference between given dates

Apps:

Touch - set the "modified" timestamp of a file to current time

Show For Files - tray menu to show/hide files extensions, hidden & system files, and selection checkboxes

SPDiff - Single-Pane Text Diff

 

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39 minutes ago, orbs said:

which causes the absurd situation where the array element[1] actually contains text line #2, array element[2] actually contains text line #3, and so on.

It can be easily solved by using a For...In...Next loop, we cannot use the For...In...Next loop for arrays with index in [0]!

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Global $n, $aArray[10000000]
Global $t = TimerInit()
For $n = 1 To UBound($aArray) - 1
    ; no matter
Next
Global $t1 = TimerDiff($t)
$t = TimerInit()
Global $i = UBound($aArray) - 1
For $n = 1 To $i
    ; no matter
Next
Global $t2 = TimerDiff($t)
$t = TimerInit()
For $n In $aArray
    ; no matter
Next
Global $t3 = TimerDiff($t)
MsgBox(262144, @ScriptName, "using UBound, time = " & Round($t1, 4) & " mSec." & _
        @CR & "using $i, time = " & Round($t2, 4) & " mSec." & _
        @CR & "using in, time = " & Round($t3, 4) & " mSec." )

 

On 8/26/2016 at 4:54 AM, TheDcoder said:

I have thought of this idea just now

can you show the idea as code ?. I don't get it.

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8 hours ago, argumentum said:

can you show the idea as code ?. I don't get it.

I am afraid that I don't know how to represent the internal mechanisms of Arrays in code... I have clearly made some points in the first posts about how it would work, have you read them?

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6 hours ago, TheDcoder said:

am afraid that I don't know how to represent the internal mechanisms of Arrays in code... I have clearly made some points

So you can not represent it in code of any language but the code should be the way you, dream ?

On 8/26/2016 at 4:54 AM, TheDcoder said:

UBound will check if the pointer already has a cache value associated with it, if yes, it Return the that value instead of recounting.

cache it in your script

On 8/27/2016 at 1:28 AM, TheDcoder said:

Anyway, as @JohnOne and @jchd speculated, it would nice if a developer would shed some light

The only way to shed light is "show me the code" but you'd not know if it's optimal anyway without trial, error and measurement.
Unless a developer tells you "yes, it is as you desire, rest easy now" 

So, the code I posted shows to be optimal as is. You show me code, to show that is otherwise, then I may get your point.

...and my mom told me not to open my mouth unless I'm asked a question, but I still don't seem to understand my mom's wisdom...   

Follow the link to my code contribution ( and other things too ).
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2 minutes ago, argumentum said:

So you can not represent it in code of any language but the code should be the way you, dream ?

Hey hey, That means I don't have the skill to code "Arrays" :P! I think the AutoIt Team does have that skill!

4 minutes ago, argumentum said:

cache it in your script

 

On 27/8/2016 at 10:58 AM, TheDcoder said:

Like @orbs said, I would cache/store the length, but I am more focussing on a scenario where a UDF would have to use an extra element to store the value in it's return array (The classic example is StringSplit storing the number of elements in [0]).

 

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