[PD-dev] symbol comparison vs strcmp()

[IOhannes m zmölnig]

hi all,

Pd uses a symbol-table for practically all of its string handling.
the main purpose of the the symbol table is, as i understand it, to make 
string comparison super-fast (as there's no need to compare each 
character but just a simple address).

now, looking at the code i see quite a number of places¹ where something 
like this is used:

 > strcmp(atom_getsymbolarg(i, argc, argv)->s_name, refstring);


what is the reason for this?
is it just out of habit (because in all the other projects you usually 
use strcmp())
or because this is an attempt to not pollute the symbol table needlessly?

or am i missing something?
or should they just be replaced with symbol comparisions?

gmsadr
IOhannes



¹ i've counted about 135 of such uses (automatically; so I certainly 
missed a few)

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