Re: surrogates optimization

Tex,

This approach would work only if we allowed access to the string 
contents always via regimented API. Unfortunately, many third party 
extensions (and many bundled ones) simply change the contents of the 
string directly via a pointer.. I am not sure we could standardize 
this.

-Andrei

On Mar 8, 2006, at 1:35 AM, Tex Texin wrote:

> Suggestion for improving the performance of indexing strings:
>
> Associate with the string the index of the first code unit that is a
> surrogate.
> Since most strings will have no surrogates, these strings will have a 
> value
> greater than the length of the string, and this tells you that you can 
> index
> directly into the string. When there is a surrogate, you can index 
> directly,
> prior to the surrogate's index.
>
> If there is a surrogate then you can consider the meta data for 
> remembering
> which chars used surrogates, to optimize indexing as was proposed.
>
> This is low cost, very efficient... Most strings won't have surrogates.
> tex
>