Note that this extension is very much in an experimental stage. It should be robust enough with a fairly comprehensive test suite. However, the API is incomplete and subject to change.
Project is hosted at SourceForge [L1 ].
Web site and documentation is at http://tarray.sourceforge.net .
The tarray extension implements a new Tcl collection data type - typed array - and associated commands column and table. A typed array stores elements of a specific data type in native format. The primary motivation for this extension is efficient memory utilization and speed of certain operations in applications dealing with very large numbers of elements. Typed columns and tables do not really provide any additional capabilities over Tcl's built-in commands, particularly list and dict and the script libraries based on these. Their primary use is in applications with large number of data items where memory consumption and cost of operations, such as searching and sorting, are greatly reduced.
The tarray extension was inspired in part by Speed Tables and to a lesser extent by TclRal.
The philosophy behind tarray is to provide efficient facilities on top of which more sophisticated data structures, possibly customized for specific applications, can be easily scripted and experimented with. Therefore, unlike Speed Tables, tarray does not require creation and recompilation of a new extension for each table definition. Moreover, tarray provides value-based semantics so that columns and tables can be used as basic building blocks. Additional facilities that Speed Tables provides, like remote access, are expected to be implemented at the script level.
SEH -- It would be useful to be able to do dumps of raw binary data once a TArray had been constucted. Then one could, for example, use it with a reflected channel to duplicate the function of memchan. Or to do device I/O. (Is this already possible?)
APN Direct I/O files/databases to and from typed arrays is on the to-do list but low down for a couple of reasons. First, there are still a bunch of basic operations and optimizations that have to be implemented to make the package more useful as a building block. Second, it is not clear what the output / input format should be. Even just binary dumps raise questions of endianness etc.
AK - 2013-04-18 22:18:04
Tcllib already has a memchan emulation based on reflected channels. Documentation @ https://core.tcl.tk/tcllib/doc/trunk/embedded/www/tcllib/files/modules/virtchannel_base/tcllib_memchan.html
SEH -- Since that package is pure Tcl, I was hoping a TArray-based solution would be faster.
AK -- What makes this then different from the original memchan ?
SEH -- Nothing at all, except that the author states above that TArray is intended to be a modular base for a range of specific solutions. If the function of memchan could be duplicated, that would be one less purpose-specific package to maintain, replaced by a flexible multi-purpose tool. I think it would be healthier for the Tcl ecosystem to have fewer of the former and more of the latter, for an equivalent range of applications.