From: mental@...
Date: 2005-11-18T00:40:08+09:00
Subject: Re: Object#to_b

Quoting Trans <transfire@gmail.com>:

> > I don't see any way that it could be as efficient as the
> current
> > setup, where nil and false are immediate values and are checked
> > with a simple bitmask.
>
> Could they get special object_id's that are easy to check?

Like...?

Currently, for 32-bit systems:

            false: 00000000000000000000000000000000
             true: 00000000000000000000000000000010
              nil: 00000000000000000000000000000100
            undef: 00000000000000000000000000000110
           Symbol: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX00001110
 Object reference: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX0
           Fixnum: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX1

That means we get 24 bits worth of symbols, 31 (signed) bits of
fixnums, and 31-bit pointers to objects (so objects must be aligned
on two-byte boundaries).

-mental