FreeLists / openbeosnetteam / [openbeosnetteam] Re: PPP API

["Ingo Weinhold" <bonefish@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Waldemar Kornewald" <Waldemar.Kornewald@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > I've been busy lately, so I haven't had to time to look at it. 
> > However,
> > as my response has been requested, I feel obliged to at least say
> > something. Perhaps I can remedy the situation by dumping lots of 
> > code
> > at you guys: http://members.verizon.net/~vze236yf/
> > net_server_stuff.zip
> > This code was written in another context, and (for a variety of
> > reasons) is probably slow as hell, but it does illustrate some of 
> > the
> > ideas I've mentioned. It also (as far as it goes -- which is a 
> > generic
> > ethernet driver and a PPPoE stack) actually works, and does so 
> > quite
> > well. I have omitted all of the support libraries, however. If you 
> > want
> > them, e-mail me. Maybe that will delay you long enough for me to be
> > able to take a look at yours.
> 
> I like the idea, really. Unfortunately, it is too inefficient. 
> Strings are
> flexible, but too slow for this. Int32 is not felxible enough because 
> you
> cannot define codes that say what they do (like "pppoe/ethernet").
> There must be a better solution....

A string together with a hash value may do. Something like:

class HashString {
public:
        HashString(const char *str)
                : fString(str),
                  fHash(_ComputeHash(fString))
        {
        }
        ...

        inline const char *String()     { return fString; }
        inline uint32 Hash()            { return fHash; }
        ...

        inline int Compare(const HashString& other)
        {
                int cmp = (int)fHash - (int)other.fHash;
                if (cmp == 0)
                        cmp = strcmp(fString, other.fString);
                return cmp;
        }

        inline operator==()(const HashString& other)
        {
                return (Compare(other) == 0);
        }
        ...

private:
        uint32          fHash;
        const char      *fString;
};

Given a good hash function comparissons are O(1) for virtually all but 
identical strings. Furthermore objects of this class are supposed to be 
good citizens of hash tables.

> Anyway, I want to produce some code now, so I will not write many 
> mails in
> that time.

Have fun!

CU, Ingo