Saving Derived Attributes to Avoid Re-computation
As discussed, "redundancy means duplication of exact data". But, if multiple copies of same data are present in the system, then it can increase chance of availability of data, but the problem of computing overhead is also associated with it.
To overcome this difficulty we can "cache" or store the redundant data in its computed form and classes or objects might be defined to retain this information. The class which contains cached data must be updated if any of objects that it depends on are changed.
Figure shows use of derived object and derived attribute in OMTool. Each class box contains an ordered list of operations and attributes, each represented as text string (left of diagram). Given the location of the class box itself, the location of each attribute can be computed by adding up the size of all the elements in front of it. Since location of each element is required frequently, location of each attribute string is computed and then stored. The region containing entire attribute list is also computed and saved. In this way, you can avoid the testing of input points against the attribute text element. It is shown in the right side in Figures. If a new attribute string is added to list, then locations of the ones after it in list are simply offset by size of the new element.
Figure: Derived attribute to avoid re-computation