Re: Aspell core dump

On Thu, 16 Dec 2004, Gary Setter wrote:

> I would say that the code is difficult to understand. It does not
> seem to me to be "solid code". To make a change, like adding a
> field to whatever WritableBase::word_lookup holds would involve
> exhaustive study of the whole module. Even after much study, you
> would never be completely sure if your change broke someone
> else's assumption. To just document it as it is would be
> something of a cop out.

The void pointer array in WordEntry is simply a generic place to stick 
some data.   It is a rather common practice so I don't see how that is 
hard to understand.  The alternative would be to make WordEntry a virtual 
base class.  This will involve unnecessary allocation of dynamic memory and 
functions calls.  The way I decided WordEntry was that no extra dynamic 
memory needs to be allocated, and in the common case of only one word no 
functions calls are needed.  I am unlikely to change it.

The "(StrVector *)(s - sizeof(StrVector) - 2)" is there because it 
simplified storing the data in the hash table.  I am open to patches that 
avoid it with out adding significant performance penalty or adding a lot 
of extra code.  Of course I expect the changes to self contained within 
the file writable.cpp.

Don't even think about changing readonly_ws.cpp the data there is very 
carefully laid out to avoid wasting a lot of space with extra pointers.


-- 
http://kevin.atkinson.dhs.org