MJ - I was reading the page at [L1 ] and decided to try to implement some of the described behaviour using Tcl. The nice thing about the way namespaces work in the example below is that simply executing the namespace name (e.g. [win32]) displays all the methods in that namespace. This is very useful for interactive sessions, but should not be used for IDE autocompletion for reasons mentioned below.
Note that because of the usage of {*} this code requires at least Tcl 8.5 to run.
# this code creates 3 namespaces: {win32}, {win32 media} and {string}
proc {win32 ping} {host} {
puts "Sending ping to host $host"
}
proc {win32} {args} {
set namespace [lindex [info level 0] 0]
if { [llength $args]==0 } {
puts "[info procs [concat $namespace *]]"
} else {
[concat $namespace [lindex $args 0]] {*}[lrange $args 1 end]
}
}
proc {win32 media play} {song} {
puts "playing song $song"
}
proc {win32 media beep} {length} {
puts "beeping for $length"
}
proc {win32 media} {args} {
set namespace [lindex [info level 0] 0]
if { [llength $args]==0 } {
puts "[info procs [concat $namespace *]]"
} else {
"$namespace [lindex $args 0]" {*}[lrange $args 1 end]
}
}
# do some tests with string
rename string _string
proc {string bytelength} {args} {
_string bytelength {*}$args
}
proc {string compare} {args} {
_string compare {*}$args
}
proc {string equal} {args} {
_string equal {*}$args
}
proc {string first} {args} {
_string first {*}$args
}
proc {string index} {args} {
_string index {*}$args
}
proc {string is} {args} {
_string is {*}$args
}
proc {string last} {args} {
_string last {*}$args
}
proc {string length} {string} {
_string length $string
}
proc {string map} {args} {
_string map {*}$args
}
proc {string match} {args} {
_string match {*}$args
}
#range repeat replace tolower toupper totitle trim trimleft trimright wordend wordstart
proc {string} {args} {
# puts "called string $args"
set namespace [lindex [info level 0] 0]
if { [llength $args]==0 } {
puts "[info procs [concat $namespace *]]"
} else {
"$namespace [lindex $args 0]" {*}[lrange $args 1 end]
}
}
puts [string length 12]
# show all commands in the win32 namespace
puts [win32]NEM: See also namespace ensemble command (added in 8.5) that layers similar functionality over existing namespaces. The main differences are that procs in an ensemble are created using traditional
proc foo::bar ...
syntax rather than the
proc {foo bar} ...use above. Also calling a namespace ensemble with no arguments produces an error, rather than a list of commands in that namespace. I quite like the idea of producing a list of commands (perhaps it can be done with one of the namespace ensemble options?). Note that you could also extend the syntax of proc in a backwards compatible way to support the following:
proc foo bar {args} { ... }This would then naturally extend to creating lambdas:
set myfunc [proc {a b} { expr {$a + $b} }]MJ - Note that after some consideration executing a command to determine its subcommands/namespace doesn't seem like too bright of an idea, because you don't know upfront if there are any subcommands and therefore you might actually execute a command that doesn't need any parameters instead of a namespace. Imagine the surprise if an IDE gets the bright idea to find subcommands for the command {system hardisk format}. The way to resolve this is of course to only execute namespaces. Which quickly leads to subcommands that displays procs or namespaces and don't have any side-effects (like executing a command).
escargo - I have become more fond of object systems where you can query an object to determine what methods it understands. This is just basic introspection. One of the early suggestions I made to Snit was that types and methods should be able to respond to info commands. In that view, a command should be able to respond to info commands (or info methods) with the appropriate responses.
NEM - Yes, an info subcommand is also a good way to go. Conventions for such introspection could be formalised with, for instance Peter DeRijk's interface proposal.
MJ - Below a more advanced version that offers other ways of introspection to prevent the problem I mentioned above. I agree with escargo that this is a first start in an OO system with introspection a la Ruby. I do like the easy way you can create nested namespaces though. This is done by redefining proc, which allows you to do something like:
proc { math arithmetic add } { x y } { expr {$x + $y}}This will create all intermediate namespaces and define the proc.
proc {ns create} {namespace} {
variable ns
dict set ns $namespace 1
set create_proc [list proc $namespace {args}]
set create_proc [concat $create_proc { {
set namespace [lindex [info level 0] 0]
if { [llength $args]==0 } {
return [concat [ns procs $namespace] [ns children $namespace]]
} else {
"$namespace [lindex $args 0]" {*}[lrange $args 1 end]
}
}}
]
eval $create_proc
}
proc {ns exists} {namespace} {
if {[info proc $namespace]==""} {
return false
} else {
return true
}
}
# create the ns and root namespaces
{ns create} ns
{ns create} {}
proc {ns instproc} {namespace name args body} {
eval [list proc [concat $namespace $name] $args $body]
}
proc {ns instvar} {namespace name value} {
set var_name [concat $namespace $name]
variable $var_name
set $var_name $value
}
proc {ns procs} {namespace} {
set ns_procs ""
foreach ns_proc [info commands [concat $namespace *]] {
if {([llength $ns_proc] == [llength $namespace] + 1) } {
if {[ns is_namespace? $ns_proc ]} continue
lappend ns_procs $ns_proc
}
}
return $ns_procs
}
proc {ns vars} {namespace} {
set ns_vars ""
foreach ns_var [uplevel #0 "info vars {[concat $namespace *]}"] {
if {([llength $ns_var] == [llength $namespace] + 1) } {
lappend ns_vars $ns_var
}
}
return $ns_vars
}
proc {ns is_namespace?} {namespace} {
variable ns
dict exists $ns $namespace
}
proc {ns children} {namespace} {
set ns_children ""
foreach ns_child [info procs [concat $namespace *]] {
if {([llength $ns_child] == [llength $namespace] + 1) } {
if {![ns is_namespace? $ns_child]} continue
lappend ns_children $ns_child
}
}
return $ns_children
}
proc {ns parent} {namespace} {
lrange $namespace 0 end-1
}
# scaffolding is in place
# rename proc so that proc {a b c} {x y z} { ... }
# will create ns a {a b} and define c in {a b} as described in [1]
rename proc _proc
_proc proc {name args body} {
set name [string trim $name]
set namespace [lrange $name 0 end-1]
if {![ns exists $namespace] } {
# warning if the root namespace {} doesn't exist this will recurse infinitely
# puts "creating namespace $namespace"
ns create $namespace
}
_proc $name $args $body
} # example use twapi wrapped in subnamespaces
proc {ns use_with_twapi} {} {
package require twapi
# system functions
proc {twapi system abort_system_shutdown} {args} {
::twapi::abort_system_shutdown {*}$args
}
foreach proc {get_computer_netbios_name get_active_processor_mask} {
proc [list twapi system $proc] {} ::twapi::$proc
}
# sound functions
proc {twapi sound beep} {args} {
::twapi::beep {*}$args
}
}
# display all procs in the global namespace
puts [{}]
# display namespaces under the global namespace
puts [ns children {}]
# if you have twapi
ns use_with_twapi
puts [ns children {}]
# call a twapi command with the new syntax
twapi sound beep -type ok