Immutable Hash Array Mapped Tries
hamt?
hamt-equal?
hamt-eqv?
hamt-eq?
hamt
hamteqv
hamteq
make-hamt
make-hamteqv
make-hamteq
hamt-set
hamt-set*
hamt-ref
hamt-has-key?
hamt-has-value?
hamt-remove
hamt-count
hamt-empty?
hamt-map
hamt-for-each
hamt->list
hamt-keys
hamt-values
for/  hamt
1 Performance
Bibliography
8.12

Immutable Hash Array Mapped Tries🔗ℹ

Jon Zeppieri <zeppieri@gmail.com>

 (require data/hamt) package: hamt

This package defines immutable hash array mapped tries (or HAMTs, for short). A HAMT is a dictionary, and its interface mimics that of an immutable hash table. (Since this package was first released, Racket’s own immutable hashes have been re-implemented as HAMTs, in C.)

In addition to the functions documented here, the HAMTs provided by this module implement the gen:dict, gen:collection, gen:sequence, and gen:sequence generic interfaces.

Hash array mapped tries are described in [Bagwell2000].

Caveat concerning mutable keys: If a key in an equal?-based HAMT is mutated (e.g., a key string is modified with string-set!), then the HAMT’s behavior for insertion, lookup, and remove operations becomes unpredictable.

procedure

(hamt? v)  boolean?

  v : any/c
Returns #t if v is a HAMT, #f otherwise.

procedure

(hamt-equal? hamt)  boolean?

  hamt : hamt?

procedure

(hamt-eqv? hamt)  boolean?

  hamt : hamt?

procedure

(hamt-eq? hamt)  boolean?

  hamt : hamt?
hamt-equal? returns #t if the given HAMT’s keys are compared with equal?, #f otherwise. hamt-eqv? returns #t if the given HAMT’s keys are compared with eqv?, #f otherwise. hamt-eq? returns #t if the given HAMT’s keys are compared with eq?, #f otherwise.

procedure

(hamt key val ... ...)  (and/c hamt? hamt-equal?)

  key : any/c
  val : any/c

procedure

(hamteqv key val ... ...)  (and/c hamt? hamt-eqv?)

  key : any/c
  val : any/c

procedure

(hamteq key val ... ...)  (and/c hamt? hamt-eq?)

  key : any/c
  val : any/c
Creates a HAMT with each key mapped to the following val. Each key must have a val, so the total number of arguments must be even.

The hamt procedure creates a HAMT where keys are compared with equal?, hamteqv creates a HAMT where keys are compared with eqv?, and hamteq creates a HAMT where keys are compared with eq?.

The key to val mappings are added to the table in the order they appear in the argument list, so later mappings can hide earlier ones if the keys are equal.

procedure

(make-hamt [assocs])  (and/c hamt? hamt-equal?)

  assocs : (listof pair?) = null

procedure

(make-hamteqv [assocs])  (and/c hamt? hamt-eqv?)

  assocs : (listof pair?) = null

procedure

(make-hamteq [assocs])  (and/c hamt? hamt-eq?)

  assocs : (listof pair?) = null
Creates a HAMT that is initialized with the contents of assocs. In each element of assocs, the car is a key, and the cdr is the corresponding value. The mappings are added to the table in the order they appear in the argument list, so later mappings can hide earlier ones if the keys are equal.

make-hamt creates a HAMT where the keys are compared with equal?, make-hamteqv creates a HAMT where the keys are compared with eqv?, and make-hamteq creates a HAMT where the keys are compared with eq?.

procedure

(hamt-set hamt key v)  hamt?

  hamt : hamt?
  key : any/c
  v : any/c
Functionally extends hamt by mapping key to v, overwriting any existing mapping for key, and returning the extended HAMT.

See also the caveat concerning mutable keys above.

procedure

(hamt-set* hamt key v ... ...)  hamt?

  hamt : hamt?
  key : any/c
  v : any/c
Functionally extends hamt by mapping each key to the following v, overwriting any existing mapping for each key, and returning the extended HAMT. Mappings are added to the table in the order they appear in the argument list, so later mappings can hide earlier ones if the keys are equal.

procedure

(hamt-ref hamt key [failure-result])  any/c

  hamt : hamt?
  key : any/c
  failure-result : any/c = 
(λ ()
  (raise (exn:fail:contract ....)))
Returns the value for key in hamt. If no value is found for key, then failure-result determines the result:

See also the caveat concerning mutable keys above.

procedure

(hamt-has-key? hamt key)  boolean?

  hamt : hamt?
  key : any/c
Returns #t if hamt contains a value for the given key, #f otherwise.

procedure

(hamt-has-value? hamt value [equal?])  boolean?

  hamt : hamt?
  value : any/c
  equal? : (-> any/c any/c boolean?) = equal?
Returns #t if hamt contains the given value, #f otherwise. (This function is O(n) in the size of hamt.)

procedure

(hamt-remove hamt key)  hamt?

  hamt : hamt?
  key : any/c
Functionally removes any existing mapping for key in hamt, returning the fresh HAMT.

See also the caveat concerning mutable keys above.

procedure

(hamt-count hamt)  exact-nonnegative-integer?

  hamt : hamt?
Returns the number of keys mapped by hamt.

procedure

(hamt-empty? hamt)  boolean?

  hamt : hamt?
Returns #t just in case (zero? (hamt-count hamt)) is #t, #f otherwise.

procedure

(hamt-map hamt proc)  (listof any/c)

  hamt : hamt?
  proc : (any/c any/c . -> . any/c)
Applies the procedure proc to each element of hamt in an unspecified order, accumulating the results into a list. The procedure proc is called each time with a key and its value.

procedure

(hamt-for-each hamt proc)  void?

  hamt : hamt?
  proc : (any/c any/c . -> . any/c)
Applies the procedure proc to each element of hamt (for the side-effects of proc) in an unspecified order. The procedure proc is called each time with a key and its value.

procedure

(hamt->list hamt)  (listof (cons/c any/c any/c))

  hamt : hamt?
Returns a list of the key–value pairs of hamt in an unspecified order.

procedure

(hamt-keys hamt)  (listof any/c)

  hamt : hamt?
Returns a list of the keys in hamt in an unspecified order.

procedure

(hamt-values hamt)  (listof any/c)

  hamt : hamt?
Returns a list of the values in hamt in an unspecified order.

syntax

(for/hamt (for-clause ...) body-or-break ... body)

(for*/hamt (for-clause ...) body-or-break ... body)
(for/hamteqv (for-clause ...) body-or-break ... body)
(for*/hamteqv (for-clause ...) body-or-break ... body)
(for/hamteq (for-clause ...) body-or-break ... body)
(for*/hamteq (for-clause ...) body-or-break ... body)
Like for/hash and its variants, except that it produces a hamt, hamteqv, or hamteq.

1 Performance🔗ℹ

 (require data/hamt/fast) package: hamt

This package provides exactly the same interface as data/hamt, but the procedures that it exports are not wrapped in contracts. Therefore, passing unexpected kinds of data to these procedures will likely result in error messages that aren’t especially helpful. On the other hand, they will run much faster than than their counterparts with contracts.

Because data/hamt provides essentially the same functionality as Racket’s built-in hash data type, there would be no point in using the former unless it provided some advantage over the latter. With contracts on, a hamt is usually slower than a hash, but with contracts off, it is usually faster. (You can validate this claim using the perf.rkt script included in the test directory of this package.) Therefore, I recommend using data/hamt/fast for production use.

A hamt is a tree with a branching factor of 16, so, while Racket’s built-in hash data type provides O(log2 N) access and update, a hamt provides the same operations at O(log16 N). That said, hash has lower constant-time overhead, and it’s implemented in C. My tests indicate that hash tends to have slightly better access performance, and hamt tends to be slightly faster at insertion and removal. (Rather perplexingly, hash seems to perform best on all operations when given sequential fixnums as keys.) You should do your own performance testing before concluding what kind of immutable dictionary to use in your program.

Bibliography🔗ℹ

[Bagwell2000] Phil Bagwell, “Ideal Hash Trees,” (Report). Infoscience Department, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 2000. http://lampwww.epfl.ch/papers/idealhashtrees.pdf