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next(n)                         TclOO Commands                         next(n)

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NAME

       next, nextto - invoke superclass method implementations


SYNOPSIS

       package require TclOO

       next ?arg ...?
       nextto class ?arg ...?
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DESCRIPTION

       The next command is used to call implementations of a method by a
       class, superclass or mixin that are overridden by the current method.
       It can only be used from within a method. It is also used within
       filters to indicate the point where a filter calls the actual
       implementation (the filter may decide to not go along the chain, and
       may process the results of going along the chain of methods as it
       chooses). The result of the next command is the result of the next
       method in the method chain; if there are no further methods in the
       method chain, the result of next will be an error. The arguments, arg,
       to next are the arguments to pass to the next method in the chain.

       The nextto command is the same as the next command, except that it
       takes an additional class argument that identifies a class whose
       implementation of the current method chain (see info object call)
       should be used; the method implementation selected will be the one
       provided by the given class, and it must refer to an existing non-
       filter invocation that lies further along the chain than the current
       implementation.


THE METHOD CHAIN

       When a method of an object is invoked, things happen in several stages:

       [1]    The structure of the object, its class, superclasses, filters,
              and mixins, are examined to build a method chain, which contains
              a list of method implementations to invoke.

       [2]    The first method implementation on the chain is invoked.

       [3]    If that method implementation invokes the next command, the next
              method implementation is invoked (with its arguments being those
              that were passed to next).

       [4]    The result from the overall method call is the result from the
              outermost method implementation; inner method implementations
              return their results through next.

       [5]    The method chain is cached for future use.

   METHOD SEARCH ORDER
       When constructing the method chain, method implementations are searched
       for in the following order:

       [1]    In the classes mixed into the object, in class traversal order.
              The list of mixins is checked in natural order.

       [2]    In the classes mixed into the classes of the object, with
              sources of mixing in being searched in class traversal order.
              Within each class, the list of mixins is processed in natural
              order.

       [3]    In the object itself.

       [4]    In the object's class.

       [5]    In the superclasses of the class, following each superclass in a
              depth-first fashion in the natural order of the superclass list.

       Any particular method implementation always comes as late in the
       resulting list of implementations as possible; this means that if some
       class, A, is both mixed into a class, B, and is also a superclass of B,
       the instances of B will always treat A as a superclass from the
       perspective of inheritance.  This is true even when the multiple
       inheritance is processed indirectly.

   FILTERS
       When an object has a list of filter names set upon it, or is an
       instance of a class (or has mixed in a class) that has a list of filter
       names set upon it, before every invocation of any method the filters
       are processed. Filter implementations are found in class traversal
       order, as are the lists of filter names (each of which is traversed in
       natural list order). Explicitly invoking a method used as a filter will
       cause that method to be invoked twice, once as a filter and once as a
       normal method.

       Each filter should decide for itself whether to permit the execution to
       go forward to the proper implementation of the method (which it does by
       invoking the next command as filters are inserted into the front of the
       method call chain) and is responsible for returning the result of next.

       Filters are invoked when processing an invocation of the unknown method
       because of a failure to locate a method implementation, but not when
       invoking either constructors or destructors. (Note however that the
       destroy method is a conventional method, and filters are invoked as
       normal when it is called.)


EXAMPLES

       This example demonstrates how to use the next command to call the
       (super)class's implementation of a method. The script:

              oo::class create theSuperclass {
                  method example {args} {
                      puts "in the superclass, args = $args"
                  }
              }
              oo::class create theSubclass {
                  superclass theSuperclass
                  method example {args} {
                      puts "before chaining from subclass, args = $args"
                      next a {*}$args b
                      next pureSynthesis
                      puts "after chaining from subclass"
                  }
              }
              theSubclass create obj
              oo::objdefine obj method example args {
                  puts "per-object method, args = $args"
                  next x {*}$args y
                  next
              }
              obj example 1 2 3

       prints the following:

              per-object method, args = 1 2 3
              before chaining from subclass, args = x 1 2 3 y
              in the superclass, args = a x 1 2 3 y b
              in the superclass, args = pureSynthesis
              after chaining from subclass
              before chaining from subclass, args =
              in the superclass, args = a b
              in the superclass, args = pureSynthesis
              after chaining from subclass

       This example demonstrates how to build a simple cache class that
       applies memoization to all the method calls of the objects it is mixed
       into, and shows how it can make a difference to computation times:

              oo::class create cache {
                  filter Memoize
                  method Memoize args {
                      # Do not filter the core method implementations
                      if {[lindex [self target] 0] eq "::oo::object"} {
                          return [next {*}$args]
                      }

                      # Check if the value is already in the cache
                      my variable ValueCache
                      set key [self target],$args
                      if {[info exist ValueCache($key)]} {
                          return $ValueCache($key)
                      }

                      # Compute value, insert into cache, and return it
                      return [set ValueCache($key) [next {*}$args]]
                  }
                  method flushCache {} {
                      my variable ValueCache
                      unset ValueCache
                      # Skip the caching
                      return -level 2 ""
                  }
              }

              oo::object create demo
              oo::objdefine demo {
                  mixin cache
                  method compute {a b c} {
                      after 3000 ;# Simulate deep thought
                      return [expr {$a + $b * $c}]
                  }
                  method compute2 {a b c} {
                      after 3000 ;# Simulate deep thought
                      return [expr {$a * $b + $c}]
                  }
              }

              puts [demo compute  1 2 3]      -> prints "7" after delay
              puts [demo compute2 4 5 6]      -> prints "26" after delay
              puts [demo compute  1 2 3]      -> prints "7" instantly
              puts [demo compute2 4 5 6]      -> prints "26" instantly
              puts [demo compute  4 5 6]      -> prints "34" after delay
              puts [demo compute  4 5 6]      -> prints "34" instantly
              puts [demo compute  1 2 3]      -> prints "7" instantly
              demo flushCache
              puts [demo compute  1 2 3]      -> prints "7" after delay


SEE ALSO

       oo_class(n), oo_define(n), oo_object(n), self(n)


KEYWORDS

       call, method, method chain

TclOO                                 0.1                              next(n)

tcl 8.6.14 - Generated Sat Mar 2 15:17:48 CST 2024
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