Re: How to use Quarks?

[Andrew Cowie <andrew operationaldynamics com>]

On Sat, 2009-01-03 at 10:40 -0500, Yu Feng wrote:
> If you are accessing data member(g_object_set_data) frequently you could
> use quarks to accelerate the looking up process(g_object_set_qdata).

On Sun, 2009-01-04 at 14:41 +0200, Stefan Kost wrote:
> If you use a hashtable with strings as keys, a lookup on the hashtable would
> need to compare the strings to find the entry. ... [so GQuark] as keys
> in the hashtable [is easier]

This all begs a question: 

Is using g_object_set_qdata() and g_object_get_qdata() better because
the "arbitrary data" capability in GObjects is

        - powered by a mechanism that is going to convert string keys to
        GQuarks (interning, presumably) every time for lookups, or

        - because it keeps two tables (one of string keys and one of
        integer [GQuark] keys, or

        - ...?

ie, it sounds like we should switch to g_object_set_qdata() for our one
and only use of GObject "data"; we request and set that value a *lot*,
and I'm always pleased to use faster code paths. The key we use is
already a static string anyway.

AfC
Sydney