摘要 |
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that accesses a desired element during execution of a program. During operation, the system receives a reference to the desired element. The system determines if the reference is an internal reference to a location in a local package that is currently executing, or an external reference to a location in an external package. If the reference is an external reference, the system uses an index component of the reference to lookup an address for the desired element in a global reference table. Next, the system uses the address to access the desired element. Note that the address retrieved from the global reference table is larger than the reference, which allows the address to access a larger address space than is possible to access with the reference alone. |