My interest is strictly theoretical at this point, but ultimately applied.
- Is there any problem, theoretically, with defining a byte with m bits, and flipping single bits to connote T/F for a given ordinal value/position?
Essentially I'm looking for the most compact method reading/writing ordinal values in an array that expresses different subsets/combinations of the power set m: P(m) = 2ᵐ.
--------
Purpose: This is related to the game-theoretic conception of Sudoku and Latin Squares. Although our current software is Java based and uses conventional structure and arrays, the ultimate problem size is so large, when we move on to solution checking and integration of neural networks, we're going to have to be optimized. This means flipping the least number of bits, and using the least amount of volume. (We have a custom server allowing cross platform PvP on any device that can has connectivity, and, at some point, bandwidth usage is going to be an issue.)
A. My assumption is writing a single value to a conventional array require more operation or energy than flipping a single bit, even if I have to pull the whole string to flip the bit.
B. If I have to assign a memory address for individual values (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) my understanding is each of those addresses reserves an entire byte. By contrast, with a bit array, I only need a single 8-bit byte. [For a neural network, there may be trillions of these arrays, conservatively, without coming close to exhausting the problem space.]
C. If we use conventional arrays vs. bit arrays, the amount of data transferred is significantly greater.
Are there any problems with these assumptions, theoretically speaking?
(Apologies if I've tagged anything incorrectly--feel free to modify :)