Re: Re(4): [colorforth] merging dictionaries

[Samuel Falvo <falvosa@xxxxxxxxx>]

> I was not making a criticism or professing any kind of competence. I was
> simply trying to clarify (for myself) what you meant by "adding a one to
> the name", as the wording felt somewhat ambiguous to me at the time.

Words in ColorForth are stored in compressed format.  It's not a true Huffman
encoding; it's more closely related to Shannon encoding, but I digress.  Bits 4
through 31 of a 32-bit word are used to store the word name.

Bits 0-3 are used for the color token when found in the source block.  When a
word is stored in the dictionary, however, the color token is unused, so it's
set to all zeros to make comparisons consistent and fast.

Mark's modification changes the structure of the dictionary so that bit 0 is
used to indicate whether it is a macro or Forth definition.  Note that looking
through the dictionary is still just as fast -- a single CMP instruction per
table entry.  Just look through the dictionary with bit 0 set if you are
looking for a macro word, or bit 0 clear for a Forth word.

> I apologize for "pinning" you with innuendo. That was really the last
> thing I was trying to do.

AH HA!  The truth is set free!  While not at the top of your list of
wrong-doing, it WAS on the list!  HEATHEN!  ;-)  (just kidding)

--
Samuel A. Falvo II


> 
> -- Art
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: colorforth-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> For additional commands, e-mail: colorforth-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Main web page - http://www.colorforth.com
> 


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: colorforth-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: colorforth-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Main web page - http://www.colorforth.com