Author: lwall
Date: 2008-12-18 22:20:36 +0100 (Thu, 18 Dec 2008)
New Revision: 24474
Modified:
docs/Perl6/Spec/S12-objects.pod
docs/Perl6/Spec/S29-functions.pod
Log:
[Spec] redefine WHAT to stringify to typename plus '()'
Modified: docs/Perl6/Spec/S12-objects.pod
===================================================================
--- docs/Perl6/Spec/S12-objects.pod 2008-12-18 20:44:04 UTC (rev 24473)
+++ docs/Perl6/Spec/S12-objects.pod 2008-12-18 21:20:36 UTC (rev 24474)
@@ -12,9 +12,9 @@
Maintainer: Larry Wall <la...@wall.org>
Date: 27 Oct 2004
- Last Modified: 7 Nov 2008
+ Last Modified: 18 Dec 2008
Number: 12
- Version: 65
+ Version: 66
=head1 Overview
@@ -1865,7 +1865,7 @@
Metamethods for objects are named with interrogative pronouns in uppercase:
- WHAT the prototype object of the type, stringifies to short name
+ WHAT the protoobject of the type, stringifies to short name ~ '()'
WHICH the object's identity value
WHO the package supporting the object, stringifies to long name
WHERE the memory address of the object
@@ -1898,12 +1898,15 @@
as the first argument to methods of the metaclass, while the other
forms require you to pass this explicitly.
+Note that WHAT appends C<()> to indicate emptiness. Use C<.perl> to get the
+bare name from a protoobject.
+
In general, use of these in ordinary code should be a red flag that
Something Very Strange is going on. (Hence the allcaps.) Most code
should use Perl 6's operators that make use of this information
implicitly. For instance, instead of
- $obj.WHAT eq 'Dog'
+ $obj.WHAT eq 'Dog()'
$x.WHICH === $y.WHICH
$obj.WHAT.bless(%args)
Modified: docs/Perl6/Spec/S29-functions.pod
===================================================================
--- docs/Perl6/Spec/S29-functions.pod 2008-12-18 20:44:04 UTC (rev 24473)
+++ docs/Perl6/Spec/S29-functions.pod 2008-12-18 21:20:36 UTC (rev 24474)
@@ -14,8 +14,8 @@
Carl Mäsak <cma...@gmail.com>
Moritz Lenz <mor...@faui2k3.org>
Date: 12 Mar 2005
- Last Modified: 14 Dec 2008
- Version: 32
+ Last Modified: 18 Dec 2008
+ Version: 33
This document attempts to document the list of builtin functions in Perl 6.
It assumes familiarity with Perl 5 and prior synopses.
@@ -2009,7 +2009,7 @@
There is no ref() any more, since it was almost always used to get
the type name in Perl 5. If you really want the type name, you can
-use C<$var.WHAT>. If you really want P5 ref
+use C<$var.WHAT.perl>. If you really want P5 ref
semantics, use C<Perl5::p5ref>.
But if you're just wanting to test against a type, you're likely better off
