We might want to have a member/method by which we can tell what type of
variable we're dealing with, so that a function can be passed an arbitrary
XV, and treat it differently if it's an SV, AV, and so on.
For SVs, we might want to have a method to determine what form of
representation the internal data is in: string, int, double, bigint,
reference, and so on.
For HVs, how are the keys going to be hashed? Should the SV vtable have:
int HASH_CODE();
Or will the HV just hash off of the string representation of the SV?
On Monday 29 January 2001 19:43, Filipe Brandenburger wrote:
> // convert value
> char *STRING(); // "$this"
> int NUMBER(); // 0+$this
> double DOUBLE(); // 0.0+$this
> int BOOLEAN(); // $this ? $a : $b
Should there be method to tell an SV to change the internal representation of
the data? For example, if an SV was created as a string, but is being turned
into a float over and over again for use in equations, it would save
processing time to convert the internal representation to a float. Or would
the SV take care of stuff like that transparently?
> I also neglected references. I _think_ there should be entries like
> SV *DEREF_SCALAR();
> AV *DEREF_ARRAY();
> HV *DEREF_HASH();
Brainstormed, probably useless idea: for all vtables, have a
SV *GET_REF();
which would return a reference to the XV; this way extensions could handle
dereferencing to their data types in weird, special ways.
--
Matthew Cline | Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose that
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | you were a member of Congress. But I repeat
| myself. -- Mark Twain
