Re: fastest data structure for a hash-like lookup

[Stefan Monnier]

>> In elisp, it seems you could use a hash table of lisp lists,
>> vectors, or structures.  See `defstruct' in the CL manual for
>> structure.
> CL means "common lisp"?

C-h i m cl RET

CL is an elisp package that provides some of the functionality of
Common-Lisp, so no it's not Common-Lisp, but yet, it's got something to do
with it.

>> See `make-hash-table' in the elisp manual.
> That seems to be Emacs 21, which I'm trying to do without.

It's also available in Emacs-20 if you use CL (which internally uses
obarrays, then).

> I tried to find advice on nested data structures in the chapters about

All data structures can nest, just like in most languages.

> fastest such structure (and I doubted an alist was fast, since "keys"
> are not unique there). There was no hint in the section about vectors

Alists are pretty fast as long as they're not too long.


        Stefan