- ‘-k selected-byte-positions’
-
- ‘--key-positions=selected-byte-positions’
-
Allows selection of the byte positions used in the keywords'
hash function. The allowable choices range between 1-255, inclusive.
The positions are separated by commas, e.g., ‘-k 9,4,13,14’;
ranges may be used, e.g., ‘-k 2-7’; and positions may occur
in any order. Furthermore, the wildcard '*' causes the generated
hash function to consider all byte positions in each keyword,
whereas '$' instructs the hash function to use the “final byte”
of a keyword (this is the only way to use a byte position greater than
255, incidentally).
For instance, the option ‘-k 1,2,4,6-10,'$'’ generates a hash
function that considers positions 1,2,4,6,7,8,9,10, plus the last
byte in each keyword (which may be at a different position for each
keyword, obviously). Keywords
with length less than the indicated byte positions work properly, since
selected byte positions exceeding the keyword length are simply not
referenced in the hash function.
This option is not normally needed since version 2.8 of
gperf;
the default byte positions are computed depending on the keyword set,
through a search that minimizes the number of byte positions.
- ‘-D’
-
- ‘--duplicates’
-
Handle keywords whose selected byte sets hash to duplicate values.
Duplicate hash values can occur if a set of keywords has the same names, but
possesses different attributes, or if the selected byte positions are not well
chosen. With the -D option
gperf treats all these keywords as
part of an equivalence class and generates a perfect hash function with
multiple comparisons for duplicate keywords. It is up to you to completely
disambiguate the keywords by modifying the generated C code. However,
gperf helps you out by organizing the output.
Using this option usually means that the generated hash function is no
longer perfect. On the other hand, it permits gperf to work on
keyword sets that it otherwise could not handle.
- ‘-m iterations’
-
- ‘--multiple-iterations=iterations’
-
Perform multiple choices of the ‘-i’ and ‘-j’ values, and
choose the best results. This increases the running time by a factor of
iterations but does a good job minimizing the generated table size.
- ‘-i initial-value’
-
- ‘--initial-asso=initial-value’
-
Provides an initial value for the associate values array. Default
is 0. Increasing the initial value helps inflate the final table size,
possibly leading to more time efficient keyword lookups. Note that this
option is not particularly useful when ‘-S’ (or, equivalently,
‘%switch’) is used. Also,
‘-i’ is overridden when the ‘-r’ option is used.
- ‘-j jump-value’
-
- ‘--jump=jump-value’
-
Affects the “jump value”, i.e., how far to advance the associated
byte value upon collisions. Jump-value is rounded up to an
odd number, the default is 5. If the jump-value is 0
gperf
jumps by random amounts.
- ‘-n’
-
- ‘--no-strlen’
-
Instructs the generator not to include the length of a keyword when
computing its hash value. This may save a few assembly instructions in
the generated lookup table.
- ‘-r’
-
- ‘--random’
-
Utilizes randomness to initialize the associated values table. This
frequently generates solutions faster than using deterministic
initialization (which starts all associated values at 0). Furthermore,
using the randomization option generally increases the size of the
table.
- ‘-s size-multiple’
-
- ‘--size-multiple=size-multiple’
-
Affects the size of the generated hash table. The numeric argument for
this option indicates “how many times larger or smaller” the maximum
associated value range should be, in relationship to the number of keywords.
It can be written as an integer, a floating-point number or a fraction.
For example, a value of 3 means “allow the maximum associated value to be
about 3 times larger than the number of input keywords”.
Conversely, a value of 1/3 means “allow the maximum associated value to
be about 3 times smaller than the number of input keywords”. Values
smaller than 1 are useful for limiting the overall size of the generated hash
table, though the option ‘-m’ is better at this purpose.
If `generate switch' option ‘-S’ (or, equivalently, ‘%switch’) is
not enabled, the maximum
associated value influences the static array table size, and a larger
table should decrease the time required for an unsuccessful search, at
the expense of extra table space.
The default value is 1, thus the default maximum associated value is about
the same size as the number of keywords. (For efficiency, the maximum
associated value is always rounded up to a power of 2.) The actual
table size may vary somewhat, since this technique is essentially a
heuristic.