[Xotcl] For anyone who wants their XOTcl instantiation safer

[Kristoffer Lawson]

OK, I did a quick setup of an environment where [new] does not accept -dash initialised data, but with a separate [new-wish] that has a final argument, a script evaluated inside the object, which can do any pre-initialisation before the constructor is called. This solution works for me now and I'm not having issues with the couple of other XOTcl libraries I'm using.

I think this is a pretty decent solution and the resulting instantiation code actually looks pretty nice and readable. I'm up to other names for "new-with". Maybe something like <new ?args? with ?initscript?.There's a mini-example at the bottom.

Enjoy.


Class SafeInit

SafeInit instproc new {args} {
    return [next [concat [list -init] $args]]
}

SafeInit instproc new-with {args} {    
    set script [lindex $args end]
    set args [lrange $args 0 end-1]
    set name [my autoname ::xotcl::stk__#]
    return [my create $name [list -eval $script] [concat [list -init] $args]]
}

# Mix safer [new] and [new-with] into every class
Class instmixin SafeInit


# Test:

Class Foo -parameter {
    {animal horse}
}

Foo instproc init {arg1 arg2} {
    puts "Constructor args: $arg1 $arg2"
}

Foo instproc hello {} {
    puts jou
}


# We do not override [create] or the auto-create from [unknown]. Ie.
# class creation still works and other stuff :-)
puts "Should say 'jou':"
Foo ob 1 2 -hello
puts "Animal: [ob animal]"

# Instantiate with -dash args
set ob [Foo new -hellou world]
puts "Animal: [$ob animal]"

# Instantiate with some presets
puts "Show say 'jou':"
set ob [Foo new-with 1 2 {
  my hello
  my animal cat
}]
puts "Animal: [$ob animal]"

-- 
Kristoffer Lawson, Co-Founder, Scred // http://www.scred.com/