Re: [pdf-devel] Memory management for hashes

[Aleksander Morgado]

> 1) To let the management of the memory of the values to the entity
>    using the module. This sound really bad for me, since the client
>    would need to dispose all the values contained in the hash before
>    to destroy it. It is error prone.

For hash tables containing different types of objects, maybe this is not 
the best solution.

> 2) To specify the element memory disposal function at element
>    insertion time, like:
>  
>     pdf_hash_add (myhash, 
>                   "key",
>                   a_text_variable,
>                   memory_disposal_function_for_text_variables);
>
>    In this case would be quite useful to have some element disposal
>    functions written for the several pdf_*_t types, including the
>    pdf_hash_t one.

I really think this would be the best and simplest option.

> 3) To change the way the hash module works by introducing
>    typed-values. That is, to restrict the contents of a hash entry to
>    a predefined set of types, like:
>
>      pdf_hash_add_text (myhash, 
>                         "key",
>                         a_text_variable);
>
>      pdf_hash_add_u32 (myhash,
>                        "FileSize",
>                        pdf_u32_value);
>
>    In this case we will need to expand the pdf-hash API to be able to
>    ask the type of a given entry:
>
>      pdf_hash_entry_type_t pdf_hash_entry_type (myhash, "key");

This involves unnecessary work when trying to include new object types 
in the hash table.


Just my opinion :-)

-Aleksander