[JASS] Hashtables or globals ?

[DTBA]

In my current my I store my unit's using globals.


Lets say I want to kill a unit after 5 sec when it attacked me ill then store then unit under a global unit. now would it be better to store it under a hashtable ? And can a map have to many globals?

 

[Krogoth]

I am not using hashtables, considering that some spells are very difficult comparing to Dota. So, if question is about functionality, it can work perfectly without any bugs / lags even on my slow PC. Though for cases when spells are extremely spammable hashtable is probably faster, but even Dota WTF does not really need this.
Though I am not an expert in hashtables, I don't even know how to work with them, only what is it, so my point may be not enough expert :O

 

[DTBA]

I am not using hashtables, considering that some spells are very difficult comparing to Dota. So, if question is about functionality, it can work perfectly without any bugs / lags even on my slow PC. Though for cases when spells are extremely spammable hashtable is probably faster, but even Dota WTF does not really need this.
Though I am not an expert in hashtables, I don't even know how to work with them, only what is it, so my point may be not enough expert :O

I am just wondering if u will get lag? cuz my map is already just as big as dota. Hashtables seems to be easy to use but yea i agree with u why use it if globels are fine

 

[Eleandor]

There are legitimate reasons to use hashtables. Using them as an alternative to arrays isn't one of them. There are already more than 100 global variables declared ("last created unit", "last created group") by warcraft 3 itself before you even create a single "user defined" global. In other words: don't worry about having too many globals. Don't worry about lag either: an array is at least twice as fast as a hashtable, and hashtables only get slower as more variables are stored in it.

 

[Krogoth]

hashtables only get slower as more variables are stored in it.

Did not know this, by the way
(Not obvious fact)

 

[deathismyfriend]

hashtables are slower than arrays to begin with and yes as eleandor has said they get slower with more info added to them.

u can use indexed arrays for spells. And if u need u can use arrays keyed with the units custom value to load certain data just like u would from a hashtable.

indexed arrays are slightly faster than arrays with unit indexer being used but not much faster.

look at my tutorial things a guier should know.
the chapter how to index has indexed array method being used there.
i believe i also have a chapter on hashtables with more information about them in there.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Globals are always faster than hashtables. Hashtables are always more flexible than globals.

Use hashtables when the situation demands a process that is difficult to map to an index of an array (like mapping object types to data). Use arrays for bulk storage and when mapping to indicies is very easy (like instances of a periodic ability).

Hashtables do not resize their bucket array (at least beyond a certain size). This means using them for bulk data storage (or leaking data in them) degrades their performance considerably. If you want to store several pieces of data (eg an ability instance) it is better to use parallel global arrays and then save the index of the instances using the hashtable.