Re: loading hash-table from a file?

[Thierry Volpiatto]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> On Thu, Jan 05 2012, ishi soichi wrote:
>
>> I have never used hash-table of Emacs Lisp but I believe it's useful
>> as a database.
>>
>> Say, I have a hundred key-value pairs, which are to be stored as
>> hash-table. 
>> Can I save this as a (text?) file so that Emacs can load it when
>> booting up?
>>
>> I am a little confused because if I use (cons key value), it outputs
>> "(key . value)" which can be written in a regular file.
>> If I wish to find the value from a key, all I need to do is to simply
>> search through the file.
>>
>> Do you think I can save the database using hash-table like this?
>>
>> soichi
>>
>>
>
> I found this on the internet (presumably authored by someone with the
> initials T.V.), which does what you're asking (I used it to persist a
> hash-table that I load on startup). I don't really know if it's superior
> to the previous reply, but it certainly works. It produces a *.elc file,
> which can be loaded with `load' (provided it's in your load-path, of
> course). Whatever symbol name you originally dumped then becomes defined
> again.
>
> Eric
>
> (defun tv-dump-object-to-file (obj file)
>   "Save symbol object `obj' to the byte compiled version of `file'.
>  `obj' can be any lisp object, list, hash-table, etc...
>  `file' is an elisp file with ext *.el.
>  Loading the *.elc file will restitute object."
>   (require 'cl) ; Be sure we use the CL version of `eval-when-compile'.
>   (if (file-exists-p file)
>       (error "File already exists.")
>     (with-temp-file file
>       (erase-buffer)
>       (let* ((str-obj (symbol-name obj))
>            (fmt-obj (format "(setq %s (eval-when-compile %s))" str-obj 
> str-obj)))
>       (insert fmt-obj)))
>     (byte-compile-file file) (delete-file file)
>     (message "`%s' dumped to %sc" obj file)))

I use this always to save emacs session (buffers and variables), but it
have limitations on complex hash-tables, windows objects etc...
T.V are my initials ;-)
 

-- 
  Thierry
Get my Gnupg key:
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 59F29997