Re: RM and abstract syntax trees

On Oct 31, 5:23 am, "David Cressey" <cresse..._at_verizon.net> wrote:
> "David BL" <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote in message
>
> news:1193796029.446713.108270_at_k35g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 31, 10:06 am, paul c <toledobythe..._at_ooyah.ac> wrote:
> > > David BL wrote:
> > > > On Oct 31, 2:46 am, paul c <toledobythe..._at_ooyah.ac> wrote:
> > > >> Okay, from your original post:
>
> > > >> "So RM is forced
> > > >> to expose the equivalent of pointers directly in the representation.
> > > >> Furthermore, the RM has no mechanism for hiding these pointers or
> > > >> giving the user an interface that promotes the idea that a node
> > > >> logically represents a value."
>
> > > >> Where does RM ever mention pointers? Eg., What are the pointer
> > > >> operations that RM supports?
>
> > > > I'm associating a "pointer" with the idea to give a thing (like a node
> > > > of an AST) some meaningless identifier, and using that identifier
> > > > elsewhere as a means to uniquely reference that thing. With that
> > > > *analogy*, RM performs a pointer dereference when performing a natural
> > > > join.
> > > > ...
>
> > > Sorry if this seems pedantic (which it is) but RM references things
> > > uniquely with values.
>
> > I have no problem with you being pedantic and like your comments!
>
> > Yes RM references things uniquely with values, but pointers are "value
> > types"! Note the distinction between "pointer-type", "pointer-
> > variable", and "pointer-value". When a pointer-variable is assigned
> > a pointer-value, the object being referenced only depends on the
> > pointer-value.
>
> > If you want to be pedantic, I would say it has more to do with the
> > fact that pointer types have a dereference operator, whereas surrogate
> > ids in RM do not. But as I said, I was only drawing an analogy with
> > pointers.
>
> > Note that each time a join is used to navigate from parent node to
> > child node in an AST, we will typically only get a single tuple in
> > the join result. This follows from the integrity constraints (that a
> > node must be *exclusive or* a variable, number, addition node etc),
> > but more easily can be understood using the analogy with a pointer
> > dereference. The set level manipulation capability of RM (one of its
> > great virtues) is not being utilised.
>
> > In the end I'm more interested in whether you agree with the
> > conclusion : that RM is ill-suited to represent ASTs.
>
> In this whole discussion, I have a big problem understanding what is meant
> by "the equivalent of pointers". A pointer is NOT an arbitrary meaningless
> identifier. A pointer is an address. If you assign an arbitrary meaningless
> identifier to an object for reference purposes, that is NOT the same thing
> as referencing the object via a pointer.
>
> If you need the concept of arbitrary meaningless identifier in order to make
> a point about how RM represents trees, go ahead. Just don't call them
> "pointers" and don't assert that they are the quivalent of pointers when
> they are not.
>
>
But they behave like pointers. Most often these "arbitrary meaningless identifier" values are generated by a sequence. If you have one such value, you often can find other data simply by incrementing of decrementing the identifier value. You can manipulate or print the identifier value (IOW the pointer value is exposed unlike references in some languages.) If that isn't an example of some fundamental properties of pointers, then I'd like to hear why not.

Why isn't
select * from objecttable where objectID=<arbitrary pointer value>;  equivalent to dereferencing a pointer?
printf("%objectformat", *<arbitrary pointer value> ); Syntax may differ but the symantics feel the same to me.

Okay, you might next argue that the objectID is a virtual value and not a physical address. But I would argue that on modern virtual memory computers, a C pointer value is not the real physical address in memory, it is an "arbitrary pointer value" in the virtual address space. So both have a level of abstraction removed from the physical address. So tell me again, how are they different really???

Ed
(Personally, I think abuse of arbitrary pointer values as PKs in Relational DBs essentially converts it to a Network model DB. but that's another topic for another day.) Received on Fri Nov 09 2007 - 20:02:08 CET