Subj : Re: Change TinyId to int16
To   : netscape.public.mozilla.jseng
From : Brendan Eich
Date : Fri Feb 25 2005 10:03 am

Thorsten R wrote:
> We have modified the source code of SpiderMonkey. We have the need of
> mapping more than 256 properties to ID's (for performance reasons) and we
> examined the source code of SM and internally it is using an int16 for the
> TinyId. Only the API has limited it to int8.


For almost ten years, in two implementations.  We are not going to 
change this.

You should question your "need".  There are many ways to map id to 
index, including doing it yourself with a hash table.


> So we only had to change the API, which was 4 function declarations in
> jsapi.c (2 are static) and 2 function declarations in jsapi.h, plus the
> property struct.


You're on your own here.


> We would like to ask, if the SM maintainers can do the change in the main SM
> source code, so we don't need to make these changes locally with each new
> release of SM. Since the change is so small and easy, I think it is of great
> value for all users, since the limit to int8 has been discussed already very
> often.


We're not going to make an incompatible and unnecessary change at this 
point.  If you want to play nicer, you should bring up the requirement 
(the "need" I question above) before hacking.  Otherwise you may marry 
your changes and we may never converge.

/be

.