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NAME

Tie::GHash - A smaller hash

SYNOPSIS

  tie my %words, 'Tie::GHash';
  my $i;
  foreach (@words) {
    $words{$_} = $i++;
  }

DESCRIPTION

This module provides an interface to the Gnome glib library's hashes, which are smaller (although possibly slower) than Perl's internal hashes.

Typically, Perl sacrifices memory for speed, and this is the case with its built-in hashes. Occasionally, you have a need for a large in-memory hash, where it would be useful to sacrifice speed for low memory usage. This module provides that functionality.

Using Tie::GHash is very simple: just use the hash in exactly the same way as you would use a normal Perl hash, with the exception that you need to tie it before use as in the synopsis.

For example, reading in a typical /usr/share/dict/words using Perl's built in hashes took up 6,508K. Doing the same with Tie::GHash took up 4,784K, albeit about six times slower due to the tie interface. [The size difference is mostly due to storing the actual key and value strings rather than an SV].

NOTES

This module requires a recent version of the Inline library. This module was created during Brian Ingerson's Inline talk at YAPC::NorthAmerica 2001 when he asked me to code something fun using Inline, so blame him.

AUTHOR

Leon Brocard <acme@astray.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2001, Leon Brocard

This module is free software; you can redistribute it or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.