TIP #36: Library Access to 'Subst' Functionality
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TIP:	36
Title:	Library Access to 'Subst' Functionality
Version:	$Revision: 1.4 $
Authors:	Donal K. Fellows <fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk>
State:	Final
Type:	Project
Tcl-Version:	8.4
Vote:	Done
Created:	Wed Jun 13 00:00:00 UTC 2001
Abstract
Some applications make very heavy use of the subst command - it seems particularly popular in the active-content-generation field - and for them it is important to optimise this as much as possible. This TIP adds a direct interface to these capabilities to the Tcl library, allowing programmers to avoid the modest overheads of even Tcl_EvalObjv and the option parser for the subst command implementation.
Functionality Changes
There will be one script-visible functionality change from the current implementation; if the evaluation of any command substitution returns TCL_BREAK, then the result of the subst command will be the string up to that point and no further. This contrasts with the current behaviour where TCL_BREAK (like TCL_CONTINUE) just causes the current command substitution to finish early.
Design Decisions
The code should be created by effectively splitting Tcl_SubstObjCmd in the current .../generic/tclCmdMZ.c into two pieces. One of these pieces will have the same interface as the present code and will contain the argument parser. The other piece will be the implementation of the subst behaviour and will be separately exposed at the C level as well as being called by the front-end code.
The code should take positive flags stating what kinds of substitutions should be performed, as this is closest to the current internal implementation of the subst command. These flags will be named with the prefix TCL_SUBST_*. For programming convenience, the flag TCL_SUBST_ALL will also be provided allowing the common case of wanting all substitutions to be performed with a minimum of fuss.
The string to be substituted will be passed in as a Tcl_Obj * too, as this is both easiest to do from the point-of-view of the front-end code and permits additional optimisation of the core at some future point if it proves necessary and/or desirable. By contrast, passing in a standard C string or a Tcl_DString * does not permit any such optimisations in the future.
The code should return a newly-allocated Tcl_Obj * as this allows for the efficient implementation of the front-end involving no re-copying of the resulting string. It also allows error conditions to be represented by NULL (with an error message in the interpreter result) and does not force a Tcl_DString reference to be passed in as an out parameter; returning the result gives a much clearer call semantics. Another advantage of using Tcl_Objs to build the result is the fact that they have a more sophisticated memory allocation algorithm that copes more efficiently with very large strings; when large and small strings are being combined together (as is easily the case in subst) this can make a substantial difference.
Public Interface
Added to .../generic/tcl.h
#define TCL_SUBST_COMMANDS    0x01
#define TCL_SUBST_VARIABLES   0x02
#define TCL_SUBST_BACKSLASHES 0x04
#define TCL_SUBST_ALL         0x07
Added to .../generic/tcl.decls
declare someNumber generic 
    Tcl_Obj * Tcl_SubstObj( Tcl_Interp *interp,
                            Tcl_Obj *objPtr,
                            int flags)

Implementation
The implementation is to be developed upon acceptance of this TIP, but will involve Tcl_AppendToObj and Tcl_AppendObjToObj.
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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