[Gambas-user] RFC: How to identify vertices and edges in a Graph class?

[Tobias Boege]

On Mon, 07 Jul 2014, Beno?t Minisini wrote:
> Le 07/07/2014 17:59, Tobias Boege a ?crit :
> >>
> >> Internally, you have to use an hash table anyway, haven't you? You just
> >> don't want to necessarily use string keys, as they are heavier than
> >> integer keys?
> >>
> >
> > Oh! My thoughts were: I'll need a translation table for vertex IDs into
> > internal indices (e.g. over an adjacency matrix) and to search for a
> > mapping, that table must be sorted, so I have to compare a lot. That alone
> > would actually be negligible overhead. And with a hash table, not even
> > this problem arises. Thanks for doubting me :-) No problem to use String
> > keys straight from the beginning.
> >
> >> Anyway, you must use a Collection-like interface to access the graph
> >> nodes (to be consistent with the other Gambas containers). You can use
> >> integer keys with no problems, as later you can switch to string keys
> >> and keep the backward-compatibility.
> >>
> >> You can have both too : I mean having a Gambas hash table to reference
> >> nodes by names, and a special hash table using integer keys. A void hash
> >> table does not take a lot of memory.
> >>
> >
> > How would I write the signature of _get() down in this case?
> >
> 
> For integer keys: _get(Index As Integer) As ...
> 
> For string keys: _get(Index As String) As ...
> 
> For both: _get(Index As Variant) As...
> -> That needs more work to check the index, and it is confusing, so 
> forget the "both" case!
> 

Have you read my feature request mail for function overloading in
Gambas 4? ;-)

-- 
"There's an old saying: Don't change anything... ever!" -- Mr. Monk