Cannot iterate over a Hash without allocating an array?

[in-the-mood-for-mov]

I currently use mrb_hash_keys to iterate over a hash like this

mrb_value keys = mrb_hash_keys(mrb, value);
for (mrb_int i = 0, f = mrb_ary_len(mrb, keys); i < f; ++i) {
  mrb_value key = mrb_ary_ref(mrb, keys, i);
  mrb_value value = mrb_hash_get(self->state, value, key);
  my_function(key, value);
}

This has the downside of allocating an array and copying the keys, just to discard it it right after.

The fact that mrb_hash_tbl is exposed as a public API suggests that it is fine to access directly the kh_ht. This would allow to iterate without copying by using kh_begin and kh_end. The problem is that they do not work because these macros rely on the declaration of struct kh_ht which is private in hash.c. In that case, I wonder if the kh_ht is really mean to be public?

• If yes, can I move KHASH_DECLARE to khash.h so it is usable from outside?
• If no, I guess mrb_hash_tbl should not be public at all. In that case, what do you think of adding functions similar to these to the Hash API?

typedef size_t mrb_hash_iter_t;
mrb_hash_iter_t mrb_hash_begin(struct mrb_state *mrb, mrb_value hash);
mrb_hash_iter_t mrb_hash_end(struct mrb_state *mrb, mrb_value hash);
mrb_hash_iter_t mrb_hash_next(struct mrb_state *mrb, mrb_value hash, mrb_hash_iter_t iter);

Thank you.

[mattn]

One another suggestion to use callback.

/* callback can break loop with return FALSE */
void mrb_each_with_index(
    struct mrb_state *mrb,
    mrb_value hash_or_array,
    int (*callback)(mrb_value index, mrb_value value));

[matz]

It may cause serious problems if the hash is modified during the iteration. So I am not positive about providing public API to iterate over hashes. Instead I'd rather move KHASH_DECLARE to mruby/hash.h.