Terms are constructed dynamically, even when they are are constant at compile time. Constant term caching is a transformation that lifts out constant terms and constructs them once at program initialization time.

Advantages

	* repeated construction of the same term becomes O(1)

Drawbacks

	* constant terms that would never be constructed dynamically are now constructed
	* the order of term construction changes, this may affect strategies such as =new=
	* constant terms can no longer be garbage collected

Lifting may done by nested function calls during initialization or by storing the constant term in a string (either in textual or BinaryATermFormat) and reading that in at run-time.

-- Main.EelcoVisser - 09 Dec 2001 <br />

Implemented in StrategoRelease07. Performance effects should be evaluated.

-- Main.EelcoVisser - 16 Jan 2002	
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CategoryDone | ToDo | StrategoOptimization