Weak References

[FIXME: This chapter is based on Mikael Djurfeldt's answer to a question by Michael Livshin. Any mistakes are not theirs, of course. ]

Weak references let you attach bookkeeping information to data so that the additional information automatically disappears when the original data is no longer in use and gets garbage collected. In a weak key hash, the hash entry for that key disappears as soon as the key is no longer referneced from anywhere else. For weak value hashes, the same happens as soon as the value is no longer in use. Entries in a doubly weak hash disappear when either the key or the value are not used anywhere else anymore.

Property lists offer the same kind of functionality as weak key hashes in many situations. (see section Property Lists)

Here's an example (a little bit strained perhaps, but one of the examples is actually used in Guile):

Assume that you're implementing a debugging system where you want to associate information about filename and position of source code expressions with the expressions themselves.

Hashtables can be used for that, but if you use ordinary hash tables it will be impossible for the scheme interpreter to "forget" old source when, for example, a file is reloaded.

To implement the mapping from source code expressions to positional information it is necessary to use weak-key tables since we don't want the expressions to be remembered just because they are in our table.

To implement a mapping from source file line numbers to source code expressions you would use a weak-value table.

To implement a mapping from source code expressions to the procedures they constitute a doubly-weak table has to be used.

Weak key hashes

primitive: make-weak-key-hash-table size

primitive: make-weak-value-hash-table size

primitive: make-doubly-weak-hash-table size

Return a weak hash table with size buckets. As with any hash table, choosing a good size for the table requires some caution.

You can modify weak hash tables in exactly the same way you would modify regular hash tables. (see section Hash Tables)

primitive: weak-key-hash-table? obj

primitive: weak-value-hash-table? obj

primitive: doubly-weak-hash-table? obj

Return #t if obj is the specified weak hash table. Note that a doubly weak hash table is neither a weak key nor a weak value hash table.

Weak vectors

Weak vectors are mainly useful in Guile's implementation of weak hash tables.

primitive: make-weak-vector size [fill]

Return a weak vector with size elements. If the optional argument fill is given, all entries in the vector will be set to fill. The default value for fill is the empty list.

primitive: weak-vector . rest

primitive: list->weak-vector l

Construct a weak vector from a list: weak-vector uses the list of its arguments while list->weak-vector uses its only argument l (a list) to construct a weak vector the same way vector->list would.

primitive: weak-vector? obj

Return #t if obj is a weak vector. Note that all weak hashes are also weak vectors.

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