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Re: etymology of obarray
From: |
Pascal J. Bourguignon |
Subject: |
Re: etymology of obarray |
Date: |
Fri, 16 May 2014 20:41:29 +0200 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) |
Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
> Joe Riel <joer@san.rr.com> writes:
>
>> Where does the word obarray originate? What is "ob"?
>
> Object, perhaps? Just a guess, but if you are
Yes, Object Array.
It already existed in MACLISP:
http://www.maclisp.info/pitmanual/symbol.html
Originally, in LISP 1.5, it was an OBLIST.
cf. page 12 of http://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/HOPL2-Uncut.pdf
And in LISP 1.5 we have those occurences of OBLIST:
grep -niH -e oblist lisp15.asm
lisp15.asm:1531: AXC OBLIST,2 POINTER TO OBJECT LIST
lisp15.asm:1534: RNT DEBUGI SKIP MARKING OBLIST IF IN A
DEBUG
lisp15.asm:8871:OBLIST SYN BUCKET
lisp15.asm:8951: OBLBA,,-*-1 OBLIST OBJECT
GENER068
lisp15.asm:9921: -OBLIST
GPLI0823
lisp15.asm:9923: -*-1 OBLIST
GPLI0825
> interested in the obarray in general I remember asking
> about it way back - because as I recall, the
> documentation was cryptic to say the least - and there
> were some very advanced replies, as I remember. So hit
> the archives, look for Emanuel Berg and "obarray" in
> the Subject header. Report back everything you learn :)
>
> As I recall, the obarray is a data structure (some kind
> of hash table) to store stuff dynamically (i.e., not
> just in memory) so that you can filter and do stuff
> with it - for example, to provide the set of operands
> possible after you invoke a command.
--
__Pascal Bourguignon__
http://www.informatimago.com/
"Le mercure monte ? C'est le moment d'acheter !"