[Xotcl] XOTcl 1.2.0 available

[Gustaf Neumann]

Dear XOTcl Community,

here comes the announcement of XOTcl 1.2.0
all the best

-gustaf neumann
=======================================================

Announcing XOTcl 1.2.0
**********************

WHAT IS XOTCL?

  XOTcl is an object-oriented extension of Tcl that was derived from
  OTcl. In short, XOTcl tries to provide a highly flexible,
  reflective, component-based, and object-oriented environment. It
  integrates language support for high level concepts which are not
  found in other languages, with reasonable performance. It prevails
  the Tcl programming style and the dynamic/introspective nature of
  the language, rather than introducing other language's styles and
  rigidness (such as C++) into Tcl.


CHANGES relative to 1.1.1 are:

  - Qualitative Improvements
     * improved  performance (up to more than 30% faster)
     * reduced dependency on Tcl internals (stack rewritings removed)
     * less C-code (code reduction of about 500 lines c code)
     * defined macros to access Tcl's internal structures
     Due to the speedup, an emulation of an itcl like language
     in XOTcl can be faster than itcl itself (see below).

  - Functional Improvements
     * new subcommands of self:
       self callinglevel: returns the scope of the proc/instproc
            calling the current method (ignoring filters and next)
       self activelevel: returns the scope of the proc/instproc
            preceding the current method (might be a next call,
            ignoring filters)
       the returned level can be used in uplevel/upvar as first argument

     * new methods upvar/uplevel
       "my uplevel set x 1" is a short form of "uplevel [self callinglevel]
 set x 1"

     * sub-objects can be called like methods (potential incompatibility)
       If an object named o has a sub-object q (i.e. o::q) it is now
       possible to invoke the sub-object via "o q ?method args?". This change
       makes it possible to

       - to redefine tcl sub-commands via procs/instprocs by defining
         the command with subcommands as an object (instead of defining
         a command as a proc and its subcommands via a large
         and hard-to-refine switch statement)

       - to use the same approach for defining subcommands of subcommands
         (and so on) in the same way; it would be possible to define e.g.
         the xotcl info methods via an object),

       - to use interceptors (filters/mixins) for some or all subcommands
 (maybe you are only interested in "file delete")

       - to extend a tcl command on the fly by defining new subcommands
         (by defining new procs/instprocs)

       - to use the unknown mechanism to produce dynamic error messages
         about valid subcommands (via introspection commands).

       As a simple example, one define the a specialized version of Tcl's
       file-command (say ns::file) like the following:

       namespace eval ns {
         Object file
         file proc tail name {
           set tail [file tail $name]
           regexp {[^/\\]+$} $tail tail
           return $tail
         }
         file proc unknown {subcmd args} {
           return eval ::file $subcmd $args
         }
      }

 For more details, please consult the ChangeLog

MORE INFO
  General and more detailed information about XOTcl and its components
  can be found at http://www.xotcl.org


Best regards,

Gustaf Neumann
Uwe Zdun

#=======================================================================
# extract from the logfile of oobench (in oo-bench.tar.gz,
# see http://media.wu-wien.ac.at/download.html)

XOTcl
  methcall:  0.470u 0.000s 0:00.41 114.6%       0+0k 0+0io 347pf+0w
ITcl emulation in XOTcl
  methcall:  0.590u 0.000s 0:00.62 95.1%        0+0k 0+0io 351pf+0w
itcl
  methcall:  0.870u 0.020s 0:00.92 96.7%        0+0k 0+0io 347pf+0w


#=======================================================================
package require XOTcl; namespace import -force xotcl::*

###########################################################
## Small example to emulate a itcl-like language in XOTcl
##  -gustaf neumann            Jan. 2004
###########################################################
namespace eval itcl {
  Class create class -superclass Class
  class instproc instvars {} {
    set vars [list]; set c [self]
    for {} {[string compare ::xotcl::Object $c]} {set c [$c info superclass]}
 { eval lappend vars [$c set __autovars]
    }
    return "\n\tmy instvar [lsort -unique $vars]"
  }
  class proc constructor {args} {
    if {[llength $args]==2} {
      foreach {arglist body} $args break
    } else {
      foreach {arglist construct body} $args break
      set body $construct\n$body
    }
    my parameter [list {this [self]}]
    my proc constructor args {uplevel next $args}
    my instproc init $arglist [my instvars]\n$body
  }
  class proc method {name arglist body} {
    my proc $name args {uplevel next $args}
    my instproc $name $arglist [my instvars]\n$body
  }
  class proc inherit {class} {
    my superclass $class
  }
  class proc variable {arglist} {
    foreach v $arglist {my lappend __autovars $v}
  }
  class instproc init {classdef} {
    my set __autovars this
    namespace eval [self class] $classdef
    my class Class
  }
}

###########################################################
# Two Demo classes from oo-bench
###########################################################
itcl::class Toggle {
  variable state
  constructor {start_state} {
    set state $start_state
  }
  method value {} {
    return $state
  }

  method activate {} {
    set state [expr {!$state}]
    return $this
  }
}

itcl::class NthToggle {
  inherit Toggle
  variable count_max
  variable counter
  constructor {start_state max_counter} {
    Toggle::constructor $start_state
  } {
    set count_max $max_counter
    set counter 0
  }
  method activate {} {
    if {[incr counter] >= $count_max} {
      Toggle::activate
      set counter 0
    }
    return $this
  }
}


proc main {} {
  set n [lindex $::argv 0]
  set val 1
  set toggle [Toggle t1 $val]
  for {set i 0} {$i < $n} {incr i} {
    set val [[$toggle activate] value]
  }
  if {$val} {puts "true"} else {puts "false"}

  set val 1
  set ntoggle [NthToggle t2 1 3]
  for {set i 0} {$i < $n} {incr i} {
    set val [[$ntoggle activate] value]
  }
  if {$val}  {puts "true"} else {puts "false"}
}

main

--
Univ.Prof. Dr.Gustaf Neumann
Abteilung für Wirtschaftsinformatik
WU-Wien, Augasse 2-6, 1090 Wien

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