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@raxhvl raxhvl commented Oct 16, 2024

Nick, I was going through the docs to catch up on the pointer schema, and I want to admit that I love your writing!

This PR adds clarity to the pointer schema overview. I replaced "continuous" to convey the intended meaning (neighboring). I also removed "continuous" when describing a single region, as it goes without saying that a region, as a unit, is inherently together. Here is the before and after:

Values in this schema may address a single continuous region of bytes or an aggregation of non-continuous related regions.

Values in this schema may address a single region of bytes or an aggregation of related, non-contiguous regions.

Also, I have replaced the words "block" and "chunk" (part of whole) with the "cluster" (collection of similar things) when defining a region of bytes.

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Thanks for the clean-up!

(BTW, I'll retract my verbal complaint on the call the other week about the choice of the word "contiguous". I was thinking contiguity is a word best used for grids, but apparently computer scientists have been using that word for decades to refer to bytes ranges, so yeah... good call!)

pointers (a **collection**).

## A **region** is a single continuous range of byte addresses
## A **region** addresses a cluster of contiguous bytes in machine state
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Suggested change
## A **region** addresses a cluster of contiguous bytes in machine state
## A **region** addresses a range of contiguous bytes in machine state

For simple allocations (like those that fit into a single word), the
**ethdebug/format/pointer** representation is also quite simple: just a single,
optionally named, continuous chunk of bytes in the machine state.
optionally named, cluster of contiguous bytes in the machine state.
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Suggested change
optionally named, cluster of contiguous bytes in the machine state.
optionally named, sequence of contiguous bytes in the machine state.

Have a synonym I guess ;)


This schema defines the concept of a **region** to be the representation
of the addressing details for a particular block of continuous bytes. Different
of the addressing details for a cluster. Different
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Suggested change
of the addressing details for a cluster. Different
of the addressing details for a bytes range. Different


Other allocations are not so cleanly represented by a single continuous block
of bytes anywhere. In these situations, the **ethdebug/format/pointer**
Other allocations are not so cleanly represented by a single cluster of contiguous
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"cluster" here is probably fine if you take my other suggestions, since we'll have used the more specific word "range" or "sequence" enough times that the meaning should be driven home by now, and variety of word choice is always nice to prevent things being boring.

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raxhvl commented Oct 31, 2024

Im putting together a note that covers few more things I have in mind about pointers. I will link it here and then lets take this forward.

@raxhvl raxhvl closed this May 2, 2025
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