From: Christian Szegedy <szegedy@...>
Date: 2002-09-20T01:20:46+09:00
Subject: Re: subclassing Integer

John Tromp wrote:
> I'm writing a state space search program where each state can be consisely
> described by an Integer. I need these states to have several new methods.
> 
> I can either
> 1) create a new class with an Integer attribute
> or
> 2) try to subclass Integer
> or
> 3) pass around Integers to methods of another class
>

.... Snip ...


> The only reason I would try option 2) is that
> I expect to have 100s of millions of these States around,
> and like 3) it might save memory.
> 
> Does anyone know if option 1) will take more memory than option 3)
> and if anything like option 2) can combine their advantages?
>

1 or 2 would be equally inefficient (if 2 worked). 3) takes much
less memory than any subclassing or a new structure.

One efficient solution is to define new methods under the Integer class,
but of course it is a bit nasty.

Best Regards, Christian