Author: Ulrich Schöbel <[email protected]>
Author: Larry W. Virden <[email protected]>
State: Withdrawn
Type: Project
Vote: Pending
Created: 24-Aug-2004
Post-History:
Keywords: Tcl,info,representation
Tcl-Version: 8.7
Obsoletes: 117
Abstract
This TIP proposes the new representation subcommand to info which returns the internal representation of a variable's contents.
Rationale
Inspired by a posting on news:comp.lang.tcl by Victor Wagner, I considered a facility to obtain the internal representation of the value of a variable to be useful.
It further extends the Tcl introspection commands.
It offers a method to check the type of a variable without conversion.
During the development process it is useful to detect/avoid shimmering and its negative performance effects.
Proposed Change
Add the new subcommand info representation with the following syntax:
info representation varName
It returns the type of the variable varName or an error, if
varName doesn't exist,
varName is an array and no index is provided,
varName is a scalar variable but an index is provided.
Implementation
A patch against Tcl8.4.6 is available http://sf.net/support/tracker.php?aid=1015338 .
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.