README.md

Perper

Efficient persistent hashtrie implemented in C

This project implements a persistent hash map as seen in Clojure. It is implemented in C, but provides Python bindings for convenience.

Check this page for more info about how persistent hash tries are implemented.

ctags annotated source is avaliable in the gh-pages branch. I recommend starting in perper.pyx or hashmap.c, and clicking your way through.

Usage

from perper import PersistentDict

p = PersistentDict()
q = p.setitem("foo", "bar")
r = q.delitem("foo")

p["foo"] # None
q["foo"] # "bar"
r["foo"] # None

Performance

It's fast.

from perper import PersistentDict

p = PersistentDict()
for x in xrange(10000):
    for y in xrange(1000):
        p = p.setitem(y, x)

real	0m20.730s
user	0m20.689s
sys	0m0.020s

#include "hashmap.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
	int x;
	int y;
	OInt *key;
	OInt *val;
	BasicNode *p = new_empty_node();
	BasicNode *q;
	for(x=0;x<10000;x++) {
		for(y=0;y<1000;y++) {
			key = new_oint(y);
			val = new_oint(x);
			q = INSERT(p, key, val);
			release((Object*)key);
			release((Object*)val);
			release((Object*)p);
			p = q;
		}
	}
	release((Object*)p);
	return 0;
}

real	0m14.430s
user	0m14.413s
sys	0m0.000s

from pysistence import make_dict
p = make_dict()

for x in xrange(10000):
    for y in xrange(1000):
        p = p.using(**{str(y):x})

real	27m18.539s
user	27m15.954s
sys	0m0.540s

from perseus import frozendict

p = frozendict()
for x in xrange(10000):
    for y in xrange(1000):
        p = p.withPair(y, x)

real	2m58.169s
user	2m57.791s
sys	0m0.024s

user=> (time (reduce conj {} (for [x (range 10000) y (range 1000)] [y x])))
"Elapsed time: 13728.298915 msecs"

Wow.

TODO

• Make it faster, Java beats us.
• Use C primitives instead of Python objects where possible
• Implement hash and equality to support nested maps