computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

CDR coding is a compressed

data representation Data and information visualization (data viz or info viz) is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is nume ...

for

Lisp A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lispi ...

linked list In computer science, a linked list is a linear collection of data elements whose order is not given by their physical placement in memory. Instead, each element points to the next. It is a data structure consisting of a collection of nodes whi ...

s. It was developed and patented by the

MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence La ...

, and implemented in computer hardware in a number of

Lisp machine Lisp machines are general-purpose computers designed to efficiently run Lisp as their main software and programming language, usually via hardware support. They are an example of a high-level language computer architecture, and in a sense, the ...

s derived from the MIT CADR. CDR coding is in fact a fairly general idea; whenever a data object ''A'' ends in a

reference Reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a '' name'' ...

to another data structure ''B'', we can instead place the structure ''B'' itself there, overlapping and running off the end of ''A''. By doing this we free the space required by the reference, which can add up if done many times, and also improve

locality of reference In computer science, locality of reference, also known as the principle of locality, is the tendency of a processor to access the same set of memory locations repetitively over a short period of time. There are two basic types of reference localit ...

, enhancing performance on modern machines. The transformation is especially effective for the

cons In computer programming, ( or ) is a fundamental function in most dialects of the Lisp programming language. ''constructs'' memory objects which hold two values or pointers to two values. These objects are referred to as (cons) cells, conses, ...

-based lists it was created for; we free about half of the space for each node we perform this transformation on. It is not always possible to perform this substitution, because there might not be a large enough chunk of free space beyond the end of A. Thus, some objects will end in a real reference, and some with the referenced object, and the machine must be able to tell by reading the final cell which one it is. This can be accomplished with some inefficiency in software by the use of

tagged pointer In computer science, a tagged pointer is a pointer (concretely a memory address) with additional data associated with it, such as an indirection bit or reference count. This additional data is often "folded" into the pointer, meaning stored inline ...

s, which allow a pointer in a final position to be specifically tagged as such, but is best done in hardware. In the presence of

mutable object In object-oriented and functional programming, an immutable object (unchangeable object) is an object whose state cannot be modified after it is created.Goetz et al. ''Java Concurrency in Practice''. Addison Wesley Professional, 2006, Section 3 ...

s, CDR coding becomes more complex. If a reference is updated to point to another object, but currently has an object stored in that field, the object must be relocated, along with any other pointers to it. Not only are such moves typically expensive or impossible, but over time they cause

fragmentation Fragmentation or fragmented may refer to: Computers * Fragmentation (computing), a phenomenon of computer storage * File system fragmentation, the tendency of a file system to lay out the contents of files non-continuously * Fragmented distributi ...

of the store. This problem is typically avoided by using CDR coding only on immutable data structures.

External links

* * Lisp (programming language) Data compression {{compu-prog-stub