[HN Gopher] Compact Representations for Arrays in Lua [pdf]
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       Compact Representations for Arrays in Lua [pdf]
        
       Author : tkhattra
       Score  : 33 points
       Date   : 2025-06-18 23:49 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (sol.sbc.org.br)
 (TXT) w3m dump (sol.sbc.org.br)
        
       | kzrdude wrote:
       | It was published in September 2024, so it's relatively recent.
        
       | Jyaif wrote:
       | Jesus christ, 40% waste in arrays that can be solved by using
       | `__attribute__((packed))`.
       | 
       | Irresponsible of them of not advertising this as an option in
       | luaconf.h
        
         | sfpotter wrote:
         | Here's the rest of that paragraph for you:
         | 
         | "However, this attribute is a gcc extension not present in ISO
         | C. Moreover, even in gcc it is not guaranteed to work [3]. As
         | portability is a hallmark of Lua, this almost magical solution
         | is a no-go."
        
           | Jyaif wrote:
           | It works in gcc and LLVM, on both arm and x86, so I'd say
           | conservatively that 90% of their users are covered.
        
       | ufo wrote:
       | This optimization might land in the next Lua release. More
       | specifically, the "Reflected Arrays" version (Figure 6).
       | 
       | https://github.com/lua/lua/blob/f71156744851701b5d5fabdda506...
        
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       (page generated 2025-06-21 23:00 UTC)