--- Dan Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 10:28 AM 12/5/2001 -0500, Jason Gloudon wrote:
> >Using the aggregate's vtable is another way of getting
> the job done that
> >avoids all the extra reference PMCs. However, references
> will have to be
> >supported.
>
> References are interesting. I'm currently thinking that:
>
> *) PMCs should have a get_reference vtable entry
> *) Accessing a reference should be just like accessing
> the referent. (i.e.
> you pass in the same key stuff and the reference vtable
> does the indirect
> lookup for you)
> *) Some references will need to be 'smart', so if you do:
>
> $foo = \@bar[4];
>
> and @bar's a packed array, $foo's actually a fancy ref
> that knows it points
> to @bar[4] and calls @bar's vtables when you access it.
> Or something like that.
This looks interesting, as far as it goes, but how will
parrot support the perl5ish
use overload
'@{}' => \&deref_as_array,
'%{}' => \&deref_as_hash;
? Do we pass in the PMC type that we want it to come back
as? But then how do we tell between the various types of
e.g. arrays. (To put it simply, how do you say "I want an
arry. No, I don't _care_ if it's a PerlPMCArray or a
PerlIntArray or a PerlWhatHaveYouArray!" ?)
-- BKS
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