Re: [gtk-list] Why strings? (was Re: GTK problem)

[Trever Adams <arabian onramp net>]

Owen Taylor wrote:

> Trever Adams <arabian@onramp.net> writes:
>
> > Below is a segment of code that seems like the hard way of doing
> > something.  Notice the strings "changed" "clicked" and "value_changed"
> > in this code fragment and your own code.  Why do we use strings instead
> > of constants/defines?  It takes more to compare strings than constants.
> > Is there a good reason to do it this way instead?
>

> By using hash tables, the performance hit from looking things up
> by strings is quite small. (And note that the string => id lookup
> does not occur every time a signal is called, but usually only
> when you _connect() the signal).
>
> Regards,
>                                         Owen
>

Then other than some startup slowness and screen creation, and a bit of bulk in
executable size I guess there is no reason to change it if indeed string => id
happens very seldom.

Thank you for the prompt reply.

Trever
arabian@onramp.net