Treffer: Automatic Data Structure Selection: An Example and Overview.

The use of several levels of abstraction has proved to be very helpful in constructing and maintaining programs. When programs are designed with abstract data types such as sets and lists, programmer time can be saved by automating the process of fitting in low-level implementation details. In the past, programming systems have provided only a single general purpose implementation for an abstract type. Thus the programs produced using abstract types were often inefficient in space or time. In this paper a system for automatically choosing efficient implementations for abstract types from a library of implementations is discussed. This process is discussed in detail for an example program. General issues in data structure selection are reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Communications of the ACM is the property of Association for Computing Machinery and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)