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<TITLE>process dictionary, anyone?</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Each self-respecting Erlang hacker should bash the </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">process dictionary now and again. I've made it a sport to </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">claim that it is no worse than ets.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Considering SMP Erlang, isn't it even significantly better?</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I haven't experimented with the process dictionary on </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">SMP machines, but it is process local, and can only be</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">written to by the process, so it should require much less </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">locking than ets, right?</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">A drawback with the process dictionary, compared to </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">ets, is that it has no support for match operations (other</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">than get() and get_keys()). When inspecting it from another</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">process (which is good for debugging purposes), it only </FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">allows you to retrieve the entire dictionary.</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Both these drawbacks could be easily corrected - at least</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">the second one. </FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">BR,</FONT>
<BR><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Ulf W</FONT>
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