Tcl_GetIndexFromObj

Section: Tcl Library Procedures (3)
Updated: 8.1
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NAME

Tcl_GetIndexFromObj, Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct - lookup string in table of keywords

SYNOPSIS

#include <tcl.h>

int
Tcl_GetIndexFromObj(interp, objPtr, tablePtr, msg, flags,
indexPtr)

int
Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct(interp, objPtr, structTablePtr, offset,
                          msg, flags, indexPtr)

ARGUMENTS

Tcl_Interp *interp (in) Interpreter to use for error reporting; if NULL, then no message is provided on errors.

Tcl_Obj *objPtr (in/out) The string value of this value is used to search through tablePtr. The internal representation is modified to hold the index of the matching table entry.

const char *const *tablePtr (in) An array of null-terminated strings. The end of the array is marked by a NULL string pointer. Note that references to the tablePtr may be retained in the internal representation of objPtr, so this should represent the address of a statically-allocated array.

const void *structTablePtr (in) An array of arbitrary type, typically some struct type. The first member of the structure must be a null-terminated string. The size of the structure is given by offset. Note that references to the structTablePtr may be retained in the internal representation of objPtr, so this should represent the address of a statically-allocated array of structures.

int offset (in) The offset to add to structTablePtr to get to the next entry. The end of the array is marked by a NULL string pointer.

const char *msg (in) Null-terminated string describing what is being looked up, such as option. This string is included in error messages.

int flags (in) OR-ed combination of bits providing additional information for operation. The only bit that is currently defined is TCL_EXACT.

int *indexPtr (out) The index of the string in tablePtr that matches the value of objPtr is returned here.

DESCRIPTION

These procedures provide an efficient way for looking up keywords, switch names, option names, and similar things where the literal value of a Tcl value must be chosen from a predefined set. Tcl_GetIndexFromObj compares objPtr against each of the strings in tablePtr to find a match. A match occurs if objPtr's string value is identical to one of the strings in tablePtr, or if it is a non-empty unique abbreviation for exactly one of the strings in tablePtr and the TCL_EXACT flag was not specified; in either case the index of the matching entry is stored at *indexPtr and TCL_OK is returned.

If there is no matching entry, TCL_ERROR is returned and an error message is left in interp's result if interp is not NULL. Msg is included in the error message to indicate what was being looked up. For example, if msg is option the error message will have a form like ``bad option "firt": must be first, second, or third''.

If Tcl_GetIndexFromObj completes successfully it modifies the internal representation of objPtr to hold the address of the table and the index of the matching entry. If Tcl_GetIndexFromObj is invoked again with the same objPtr and tablePtr arguments (e.g. during a reinvocation of a Tcl command), it returns the matching index immediately without having to redo the lookup operation. Note: Tcl_GetIndexFromObj assumes that the entries in tablePtr are static: they must not change between invocations. If the value of objPtr is the empty string, Tcl_GetIndexFromObj will treat it as a non-matching value and return TCL_ERROR.

Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct works just like Tcl_GetIndexFromObj, except that instead of treating tablePtr as an array of string pointers, it treats it as a pointer to the first string in a series of strings that have offset bytes between them (i.e. that there is a pointer to the first array of characters at tablePtr, a pointer to the second array of characters at tablePtr+offset bytes, etc.) This is particularly useful when processing things like Tk_ConfigurationSpec, whose string keys are in the same place in each of several array elements.

KEYWORDS

index, option, value, table lookup