List space
The Nodes are relatively high-level structures and at runtime within the peer-nodes they sit upon a more fundamental layer called List-Space in which the actual nodal change takes place in a peer.
The project uses a very fundamental memory model based on binary sequences where each bit in the sequence can be referred to also by a key which is a binary-sequence of fixed length (determined by the total number of bits in the sequence). This can be done because binary-sequences can represent numbers as well as arbitrary content.
There is no arbitrary content in the List-Space though, the only actual content stored in this binary memory are List-Items, which are each a sequence of three binary List-Item-Keys. Since the smallest addressable unit in the List-Space is the List-Item, the size of a List-Item-Key can be based on the total number of List-Items that can fit in the space, rather than the total number of bits. For simplicity and efficiency of running in current environments, ensuring the List-Item size is on DWORD boundaries may be best. Maybe 32-bit List-Item-Keys, or maybe 64-bit List-Items with 21-bit keys.
The middle key is called the data-key and its meaning and use are context-specific. The first and last keys in a List-Item are the previous-key (prev) and next-key (next) allowing the formation of doubly-linked lists called Lists, and hence List-Space. (List-Item 0 is the Root-List-Item and Root-Node and indicates a null link). Lists are referred to by the List-Item-Key of their first List-Item and such keys a referred to as List-Keys. List-Keys are a subset of the List-Item-Keys.
List-Space is an environment which offers a generic set of methods which can manipulate a space of generic List-Items each addressable by a binary List-Item-Key. Each List-Item is composed of three List-Item-Keys. This simple model is rich enough to support many kinds of higher data structures such as stacks, queues, threads, loops and trees.
- listInsert()
- listRemove(subject)
- listTraverse(subject, object)
- listGetValue(subject)
- listSetValue(subject, value)
- listGetKeys(subject)
