on javac flags

[B. Blaser]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2018 at 22:06, Maurizio Cimadamore
<maurizio.cimadamore at oracle.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Bernard,
> your solution is clever, but now a symbol has an array of N elements -
> which makes it completely unfeasible from a memory footprint
> perspective. Although maybe the core of what you are suggesting is -
> just use a custom data structure, e.g. something like an immutable
> bitset, so that we can share common combinations, etc.

Yes, a custom BitSet or FlagSet was the idea behind this and I guess
Brian is of the same opinion.
I've not verified how primitive boolean arrays are implemented, but do
we use a 64-bit word for each boolean value?
If so, maybe something might be improved here... but several long
values, as Brian/Rémi suggest, would be a good solution.
And note that EnumSet probably also uses an array of references
internally (?) or something equivalent.
But, as Jon said, first specifying the API would probably help
choosing the right implementation.

Bernard

>
> Maurizio