Type-safe modular hash-consing

Hash-consing is a technique to share values that are structurally equal. Beyond the obvious advantage of saving memory blocks, hash-consing may also be used to speed up fundamental operations and data structures by several orders of magnitude when sharing is maximal. This paper introduces an OCAML hash-consing library apsulates hash-consed terms in an abstract datatype, thus safely ensuring maximal sharing. This library is also parameterized by an equality that allows the user to identify terms according to an arbitrary equivalence relation. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.3 [Software engineering]: Coding Tools and Techniques General Terms Design, Performance Keywords Hash-consing, sharing, data structures

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: ML
• Authors: Jean-Christophe Filliâtre, Sylvain Conchon
• Keywords: Data Structures, Machine Learning, Maximal Sharing, ML 2006, OCAML Hash-consing Library