Re: [RFD PATCH 0/3] Use "object index" rather than pointers in the object hashing

Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] writes:

This is a series of three patches that changes the low-level object 
hashing to use a "object index" rather than the pointer to a "struct 
object" in the hash-tables. It's something I've been thinking about for a 
long time, so I just decided to do it.

The reason to do it is that on 64-bit architectures the object hash table 
is actually a fairly sizeable entity, and not for a very good reason. It 
has a ton of pointers to the objects we have allocated, so each hash-table 
entry is 64-bits, even though obviously we aren't likely to ever have that 
many objects.

I was thinking about revamping that "keeping track of all
objects" stuff for some time, too, but in a different direction.
Glad I have not touched that area ;-).

I think this makes sense, although the numbers are somewhat
dissapointing.