Keith Hodges schrieb:
It would be advantageous for storing binary diffs if images did not change much between snapshots.
I seem to remember some mention that the image may have its pointers updated and so this would not be the case.
can anyone fill me in on the details?
Would it be possible to save or post process a "sorted" image to take full advantage of a repository which uses binary diffs?
Assuming that most unchanged image content should be within the oldest parts of an image, which accumulate at low memory addresses, there's a possibility: Images are mostly a snapshot of the object memory, with all addresses kept as they are. When re-loading an image at a different memory base address, all object pointers get updated by the difference between old and new base. It should be relatively easy to move a saved image file to memory address 0 (I think the interpreter simulator does this). Two related images with the same base address probably have only small differences in the lower memory addresses. I have not tried this, but it could work.
Cheers, Hans-Martin