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From: manin@pendragon.rockefeller.edu (Dmitrii Manin)
Subject: assoc or binary search?
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Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 21:09:53 GMT
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Hi,

I have a big alist, consisting of thousands of elements, with cars
being strings and cdrs further lists (not so big). It is sorted
alphabetically according to cars. My question is: in emacs lisp,
what is more efficient -- built-in `assoc' or a binary search
implemented in elisp? 

Basically, this amounts to whether assoc implements any smart
strategies or fast assembler/C code, or is it equivalent to a simple
consequential lookup written in lisp?

Thanks for any hint


--
- M

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