Method Lookup Strategies in Dynamically Typed Object-Oriented Programming Languages

Karel Driesen

Abstract: A overview of currently existing method lookup strategies is given. A new technique is described in detail. It is based on selector table indexing and a known compression algorithm for sparse tables. A number of heuristics are described which increase the compression rate, thus rendering the memory cost practical. A compression algorithm which takes advantage of the clustering in method tables in order to speed up maintenance, is described and benchmarked on portions of the Smalltalk class hierarchy.

Proefschrift GGS "Master in Computer Science", Departement Informatica, Faculteit Wetenschappen, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1993.

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