What is call by sharing?

Call by sharing

In programming languages, call by sharing is a hybrid evaluation technique to pass parameters to a function. This technique uses both commonly used evaluation strategies, that is, pass by value for immutable objects and pass by reference for mutable objects. This technique is being adopted by all emerging programming languages like JavaScript, Java, Python, ROR, Julia, and so on, as an evaluation strategy.

Call by value vs. reference vs. sharing

Call by value

Call by reference

Call by sharing

The main function calls the passValue function and passes a copy of the variable as an argument.

The main function calls the passRef function and passes a reference of the variable as an argument.

The main function calls the passShr function and passes a reference of the variable as an argument.

The passValue function makes changes to the copy of the actual argument and uses it inside the function.

passRef function makes changes to the reference of the actual argument.

The passShr function makes changes to the reference of the actual argument and uses it inside the function.

The actual argument remains unchanged.

The actual argument is also changed.

The actual argument remains unchanged if immutable, and changed if mutable. Only the value in passShr is changed.

Simple objects like strings, integers, and floats are immutable objects. Objects like arrays and lists are mutable objects.

int n = 5; is immutable.

int arr[] = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]; is mutable.

If a simple variable like n is passed as a parameter to the function in the call by sharing technique, the actual variable remains unchanged. However, if an array element arr[0] is passed as a parameter to the function, the changes are reflected in the actual array object.

Call by value before evaluation function
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Code example

var var_value = 5;
var var_ref = {val: 5};
var var_shr = {val: 5};
console.log("value of var_value at start: ", var_value);
console.log("value of var_ref at start: ", var_ref.val);
console.log("value of var_shr at start: ", var_shr.val);
function passValue(var_value_func){
	var_value_func = 10;
}
function passRef(var_ref_func){
	var_ref_func.val = 10;
}
function passShr(var_shr_func){
	var_shr_func = {var_shr_func: 10};
}
console.log("\nAfter applying Evaluation techniques");
passValue(var_value);
console.log("value of var_value at end: ", var_value);
passRef(var_ref);
console.log("value of var_ref at end: ", var_ref.val);
passShr(var_shr);
console.log("value of var_shr at end: ", var_shr.val);

Code example

  • Line 8: We define the passValue function to implement the call by value as an evaluation strategy.
  • Line 11: We define the passRef function to implement the call by reference as an evaluation strategy.
  • Line 14: We define the passShr function to implement the call by sharing as an evaluation strategy.
  • Line 19: We call the passValue function and pass var_value as an argument to the function.
  • Line 22: We call the passRef function and pass var_ref as an argument to the function.
  • Line 25: We call the passShr function and pass var_shr as an argument to the function.

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