eq and hashing (was Re: [plt-scheme] How to make unit functors?)

Jacob Matthews <jacobm at cs.uchicago.edu> writes:
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> On Thu, 29 May 2003, andrew cooke wrote:
> 
> >   to make this explicit, consider storing "foo" with key 'j and (for
> >   simplicity) a hashtable so big that array indices are hash values.
> >   at the time of storage the hash code of 'j is 42, so we put "foo" at
> >   index 42.  later, after garbage collection, we want to recover the
> >   value associated with 'j.  so we get the hashcode of 'j, which is
> >   now 666, and don't find anything.  that's not right, surely?
> 
> The key insight here is that as long as anyone has a reference to a
> particular symbol value, its hash code won't change. So the fact that our
> tree structure holds onto 'a if someone inserts it (as opposed
> to merely holding onto 'a's hash code) ensures that  'a = 'a
> and (eq-hash-code 'a) = (eq-hash-code 'a) everywhere. Therefore our
> structure doesn't have a bug.

ah!  ok.  thanks.  sorry for the noise.

cheers,
andrew

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