[DGD] String sharing

[Felix A. Croes]

> Random thought on efficiency I just had even though the impact would
> probably be minimal.
>
> What would be the cost involved in having an object that redirects all
> calls relating to description and other similar generic calls to a large
> database daemon that stores generic info?  Would this cut down on memory
> and increase on processor use?  (which is what I'm aiming for, processor
> seems to be vastly underused in LP muds with the exception of staff doing
> an infinite loop)

Hard to answer that until you compile some statistics about the impact
of inter-object string sharing on your particular mud.

Considerations:

 - strings are shared within objects.  Constructed strings (i.e. with
   addition or taking a substring) are not shared with identical strings
   created in a different manner until the object is swapped out.

 - putting many shared strings in a single object creates a huge object
   that would have to be in memory all the time, quite possibly
   <increasing> memory use though decreasing swap file size.

Regards,
Dworkin