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Subject: Re: Hash tables vs Linked lists.

Author: Roberto Waldteufel

Date: 16:06:37 04/07/99

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On April 07, 1999 at 12:08:45, Hristo wrote:

>On April 07, 1999 at 10:40:35, Roberto Waldteufel wrote:
>
>>On April 07, 1999 at 10:23:44, Hristo wrote:
>>
>>>Has anybody tried to use linked lists instead of hash tables.
>>>I'm currently using a Quad linked list, i.e. Node(prev, next, parent child) to
>>>store the evaluated positions. The prev-next relation identifies all possible
>>>positions at a certain ply, and the parent-child relation is used to store the
>>>different ply-depths. For instance NodeC = Node->child->child->child would go to
>>>a position 3 plys away from the current evaluated position. Then the child will
>>>have NodeC->next ... with all possible moves within this position.
>>>What I can see is:
>>>Linked lists:
>>>    -keep the order(paths) of moves static(you always know how you get to a
>>>certain position).
>>>    -use memory more efficiently(?). One can discard a particular branch,
>>>completely, in a middle of a search and reclaim the unused memory.
>>>    -gives you the ability to traverse more easily. One can widen the tree
>>>without losing the currently evaluated position and the path to it.
>>>    -No random access to the tree.
>>>    -No or very little detection of move reordering. i.e. one can end up
>>>evaluating the same position more than once ... nasty(!)
>>>    -Generally slower performance. However, in some cases the performance seems
>>>to be quite good!
>>>
>>>What are your thoughts(experience) on this topic?
>>>
>>>
>>>regards.
>>>Hristo
>>>
>>>p.s.
>>>   Thanks Dan C.  :-)
>>
>>I would have thought that hashing would be faster than linked lists.
>
>Hash is much faster(most of the time) method for getting the information you
>describe bellow. However my main problem is the usefulness of the data stored in
>the tree vs hash. I beleive tree style yelds better information handling ..
>I can easily recognize transposition within 2 plys, but going deeper is very
>slow ... :( I wonder, what is the percentage of transpositions 2,3,4,5 plys away
>from the current position? (How often do we have transposition 5 plys away as
>supposed to 2 plys away?)
>
>regards.
>Hristo
>

I think that the deeper you go, the more possibilities for transposition there
will be. I have not experimented to test this, but mathematically I would expect
the number of transpositions to increase exponetially with search depth. Maybe a
combination of both methods could work well though.

Best wishes,
Roberto



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