Tcl_TraceVar2 man page on AIX

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   4752 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
AIX logo
[printable version]

Tcl_TraceVar(3)		    Tcl Library Procedures	       Tcl_TraceVar(3)

______________________________________________________________________________

NAME
       Tcl_TraceVar,  Tcl_TraceVar2, Tcl_UntraceVar, Tcl_UntraceVar2, Tcl_Var‐
       TraceInfo, Tcl_VarTraceInfo2 - monitor accesses to a variable

SYNOPSIS
       #include <tcl.h>

       int
       Tcl_TraceVar(interp, varName, flags, proc, clientData)

       int
       Tcl_TraceVar2(interp, name1, name2, flags, proc, clientData)

       Tcl_UntraceVar(interp, varName, flags, proc, clientData)

       Tcl_UntraceVar2(interp, name1, name2, flags, proc, clientData)

       ClientData
       Tcl_VarTraceInfo(interp, varName, flags, proc, prevClientData)

       ClientData
       Tcl_VarTraceInfo2(interp, name1, name2, flags, proc, prevClientData)

ARGUMENTS
       Tcl_Interp *interp (in)			     Interpreter    containing
						     variable.

       const char *varName (in)			     Name  of  variable.   May
						     refer to a	 scalar	 vari‐
						     able,  to	an array vari‐
						     able with no index, or to
						     an	 array variable with a
						     parenthesized index.

       int flags (in)				     OR-ed combination of  the
						     values   TCL_TRACE_READS,
						     TCL_TRACE_WRITES,
						     TCL_TRACE_UNSETS,
						     TCL_TRACE_ARRAY,
						     TCL_GLOBAL_ONLY,
						     TCL_NAMESPACE_ONLY,
						     TCL_TRACE_RESULT_DYNAMIC
						     and
						     TCL_TRACE_RESULT_OBJECT.
						     Not all flags are used by
						     all    procedures.	   See
						     below for	more  informa‐
						     tion.

       Tcl_VarTraceProc *proc (in)		     Procedure to invoke when‐
						     ever one  of  the	traced
						     operations occurs.

       ClientData clientData (in)		     Arbitrary	one-word value
						     to pass to proc.

       const char *name1 (in)			     Name of scalar  or	 array
						     variable  (without	 array
						     index).

       const char *name2 (in)			     For a trace on an element
						     of	 an  array,  gives the
						     index  of	the   element.
						     For   traces   on	scalar
						     variables	or  on	 whole
						     arrays, is NULL.

       ClientData prevClientData (in)		     If	 non-NULL,  gives last
						     value     returned	    by
						     Tcl_VarTraceInfo	    or
						     Tcl_VarTraceInfo2,	    so
						     this   call  will	return
						     information  about	  next
						     trace.    If  NULL,  this
						     call will return informa‐
						     tion about first trace.
_________________________________________________________________

DESCRIPTION
       Tcl_TraceVar  allows  a	C procedure to monitor and control access to a
       Tcl variable, so that the C procedure is invoked whenever the  variable
       is read or written or unset.  If the trace is created successfully then
       Tcl_TraceVar returns TCL_OK.  If an error occurred (e.g. varName speci‐
       fies  an	 element of an array, but the actual variable is not an array)
       then TCL_ERROR is returned and an error message is left in  the	inter‐
       preter's result.

       The  flags  argument to Tcl_TraceVar indicates when the trace procedure
       is to be invoked and provides information for setting up the trace.  It
       consists of an OR-ed combination of any of the following values:

       TCL_GLOBAL_ONLY
	      Normally, the variable will be looked up at the current level of
	      procedure call;  if this bit is set then the  variable  will  be
	      looked up at global level, ignoring any active procedures.

       TCL_NAMESPACE_ONLY
	      Normally, the variable will be looked up at the current level of
	      procedure call;  if this bit is set then the  variable  will  be
	      looked  up  in the current namespace, ignoring any active proce‐
	      dures.

       TCL_TRACE_READS
	      Invoke proc whenever an attempt is made to read the variable.

       TCL_TRACE_WRITES
	      Invoke proc whenever an attempt is made to modify the variable.

       TCL_TRACE_UNSETS
	      Invoke proc whenever the variable is unset.  A variable  may  be
	      unset  either explicitly by an unset command, or implicitly when
	      a procedure  returns  (its  local	 variables  are	 automatically
	      unset)  or  when	the  interpreter is deleted (all variables are
	      automatically unset).

       TCL_TRACE_ARRAY
	      Invoke proc whenever the array command is invoked.   This	 gives
	      the  trace  procedure  a chance to update the array before array
	      names or array get is called.  Note that this is	called	before
	      an array set, but that will trigger write traces.

       TCL_TRACE_RESULT_DYNAMIC
	      The  result  of  invoking	 the  proc  is a dynamically allocated
	      string that will be released by the Tcl library via  a  call  to
	      ckfree.	 Must	not   be   specified   at  the	same  time  as
	      TCL_TRACE_RESULT_OBJECT.

       TCL_TRACE_RESULT_OBJECT
	      The result of invoking the proc is a Tcl_Obj* (cast to a	char*)
	      with  a  reference count of at least one.	 The ownership of that
	      reference will be transferred to the Tcl core for release	 (when
	      the  core	 has finished with it) via a call to Tcl_DecrRefCount.
	      Must   not    be	  specified    at    the    same    time    as
	      TCL_TRACE_RESULT_DYNAMIC.

       Whenever	 one  of the specified operations occurs on the variable, proc
       will be invoked.	 It should have arguments and result  that  match  the
       type Tcl_VarTraceProc:
	      typedef char *Tcl_VarTraceProc(
		      ClientData clientData,
		      Tcl_Interp *interp,
		      char *name1,
		      char *name2,
		      int flags);
       The clientData and interp parameters will have the same values as those
       passed to Tcl_TraceVar when the trace was  created.   ClientData	 typi‐
       cally  points  to an application-specific data structure that describes
       what to do when proc is invoked.	 Name1 and name2 give the name of  the
       traced  variable	 in  the  normal two-part form (see the description of
       Tcl_TraceVar2 below for details).  Flags is  an	OR-ed  combination  of
       bits  providing	several	 pieces	 of  information.   One	 of  the  bits
       TCL_TRACE_READS, TCL_TRACE_WRITES, TCL_TRACE_ARRAY, or TCL_TRACE_UNSETS
       will  be set in flags to indicate which operation is being performed on
       the variable.  The bit TCL_GLOBAL_ONLY will be set whenever  the	 vari‐
       able  being  accessed  is  a global one not accessible from the current
       level of procedure call:	 the trace procedure will need	to  pass  this
       flag back to variable-related procedures like Tcl_GetVar if it attempts
       to access the variable.	The bit TCL_NAMESPACE_ONLY will be  set	 when‐
       ever the variable being accessed is a namespace one not accessible from
       the current level of procedure call:  the trace procedure will need  to
       pass  this  flag back to variable-related procedures like Tcl_GetVar if
       it attempts to access the variable.  The bit  TCL_TRACE_DESTROYED  will
       be  set	in flags if the trace is about to be destroyed;	 this informa‐
       tion may be useful to proc so that it can clean	up  its	 own  internal
       data  structures	 (see  the  section TCL_TRACE_DESTROYED below for more
       details).  Lastly, the bit TCL_INTERP_DESTROYED	will  be  set  if  the
       entire interpreter is being destroyed.  When this bit is set, proc must
       be  especially  careful	in  the	 things	 it  does  (see	 the   section
       TCL_INTERP_DESTROYED below).  The trace procedure's return value should
       normally be NULL;  see ERROR RETURNS below  for	information  on	 other
       possibilities.

       Tcl_UntraceVar  may  be used to remove a trace.	If the variable speci‐
       fied by interp, varName, and flags has a trace set  with	 flags,	 proc,
       and  clientData,	 then  the corresponding trace is removed.  If no such
       trace exists, then the call to Tcl_UntraceVar has no effect.  The  same
       bits are valid for flags as for calls to Tcl_TraceVar.

       Tcl_VarTraceInfo	 may  be used to retrieve information about traces set
       on a given variable.  The return value  from  Tcl_VarTraceInfo  is  the
       clientData  associated  with  a particular trace.  The trace must be on
       the variable specified by the  interp,  varName,	 and  flags  arguments
       (only  the  TCL_GLOBAL_ONLY  and	 TCL_NAMESPACE_ONLY bits from flags is
       used;  other bits are ignored) and its trace procedure must the same as
       the  proc  argument.   If  the prevClientData argument is NULL then the
       return value corresponds to the first (most recently created)  matching
       trace,  or NULL if there are no matching traces.	 If the prevClientData
       argument is not NULL, then it should be the return value from a	previ‐
       ous  call to Tcl_VarTraceInfo.  In this case, the new return value will
       correspond to the next matching trace after the	one  whose  clientData
       matches	prevClientData,	 or NULL if no trace matches prevClientData or
       if there are no more matching traces after it.  This mechanism makes it
       possible	 to  step  through all of the traces for a given variable that
       have the same proc.

TWO-PART NAMES
       The procedures Tcl_TraceVar2,  Tcl_UntraceVar2,	and  Tcl_VarTraceInfo2
       are  identical  to  Tcl_TraceVar, Tcl_UntraceVar, and Tcl_VarTraceInfo,
       respectively, except that the name of  the  variable  consists  of  two
       parts.	Name1  gives the name of a scalar variable or array, and name2
       gives the name of an element within an  array.	When  name2  is	 NULL,
       name1  may  contain both an array and an element name: if the name con‐
       tains an open parenthesis and ends with a close parenthesis,  then  the
       value  between the parentheses is treated as an element name (which can
       have any string value) and the characters before the first open	paren‐
       thesis  are treated as the name of an array variable.  If name2 is NULL
       and name1 does not refer to an array element it means that  either  the
       variable	 is  a	scalar	or  the trace is to be set on the entire array
       rather than an individual element (see  WHOLE-ARRAY  TRACES  below  for
       more information).

ACCESSING VARIABLES DURING TRACES
       During  read,  write,  and  array traces, the trace procedure can read,
       write, or unset the traced variable using Tcl_GetVar2, Tcl_SetVar2, and
       other procedures.  While proc is executing, traces are temporarily dis‐
       abled for the variable, so that calls to	 Tcl_GetVar2  and  Tcl_SetVar2
       will  not  cause	 proc  or  other trace procedures to be invoked again.
       Disabling only occurs for the variable whose trace procedure is active;
       accesses	 to other variables will still be traced.  However, if a vari‐
       able is unset during a read or write trace then unset  traces  will  be
       invoked.

       During  unset traces the variable has already been completely expunged.
       It is possible for the trace procedure to read or write	the  variable,
       but  this  will	be a new version of the variable.  Traces are not dis‐
       abled during unset traces as they are for read and  write  traces,  but
       existing	 traces	 have  been removed from the variable before any trace
       procedures are invoked.	If new traces are set by  unset	 trace	proce‐
       dures,  these traces will be invoked on accesses to the variable by the
       trace procedures.

CALLBACK TIMING
       When read tracing has been specified for a variable, the	 trace	proce‐
       dure  will  be  invoked	whenever  the  variable's value is read.  This
       includes set Tcl commands, $-notation in Tcl commands, and  invocations
       of  the	Tcl_GetVar  and	 Tcl_GetVar2 procedures.  Proc is invoked just
       before the variable's value is returned.	 It may modify	the  value  of
       the  variable  to  affect what is returned by the traced access.	 If it
       unsets the variable then the access will return an error just as if the
       variable never existed.

       When  write tracing has been specified for a variable, the trace proce‐
       dure will be invoked whenever the variable's value is  modified.	  This
       includes	 set  commands, commands that modify variables as side effects
       (such as catch and scan), and calls to the Tcl_SetVar  and  Tcl_SetVar2
       procedures).   Proc will be invoked after the variable's value has been
       modified, but before the new value of the variable has  been  returned.
       It  may	modify the value of the variable to override the change and to
       determine the value actually returned by	 the  traced  access.	If  it
       deletes	the  variable  then  the  traced  access  will return an empty
       string.

       When array tracing has been specified,  the  trace  procedure  will  be
       invoked	at  the	 beginning of the array command implementation, before
       any of the operations like get, set, or names have been	invoked.   The
       trace  procedure	 can  modify  the  array  elements with Tcl_SetVar and
       Tcl_SetVar2.

       When unset tracing has been specified,  the  trace  procedure  will  be
       invoked	whenever the variable is destroyed.  The traces will be called
       after the variable has been completely unset.

WHOLE-ARRAY TRACES
       If a call to Tcl_TraceVar or Tcl_TraceVar2 specifies  the  name	of  an
       array  variable without an index into the array, then the trace will be
       set on the array as a whole.  This means	 that  proc  will  be  invoked
       whenever	 any element of the array is accessed in the ways specified by
       flags.  When an array is unset, a whole-array  trace  will  be  invoked
       just  once,  with  name1 equal to the name of the array and name2 NULL;
       it will not be invoked once for each element.

MULTIPLE TRACES
       It is possible for multiple traces to exist on the same variable.  When
       this  happens,  all  of	the  trace  procedures will be invoked on each
       access, in order from most-recently-created to  least-recently-created.
       When  there  exist whole-array traces for an array as well as traces on
       individual elements, the whole-array  traces  are  invoked  before  the
       individual-element  traces.   If a read or write trace unsets the vari‐
       able then all of the unset traces will be invoked but the remainder  of
       the read and write traces will be skipped.

ERROR RETURNS
       Under normal conditions trace procedures should return NULL, indicating
       successful completion.  If proc returns a non-NULL value	 it  signifies
       that an error occurred.	The return value must be a pointer to a static
       character string containing an error message, unless (exactly  one  of)
       the  TCL_TRACE_RESULT_DYNAMIC and TCL_TRACE_RESULT_OBJECT flags is set,
       which specify that the  result  is  either  a  dynamic  string  (to  be
       released	 with  ckfree) or a Tcl_Obj* (cast to char* and to be released
       with Tcl_DecrRefCount) containing the error message.  If a trace proce‐
       dure returns an error, no further traces are invoked for the access and
       the traced access aborts with the given message.	 Trace procedures  can
       use  this  facility  to make variables read-only, for example (but note
       that the value of the variable will already have been  modified	before
       the  trace  procedure  is  called,  so the trace procedure will have to
       restore the correct value).

       The return value from proc is only used during read and write  tracing.
       During unset traces, the return value is ignored and all relevant trace
       procedures will always be invoked.

RESTRICTIONS
       A trace procedure can be called at any time, even when there is a  par‐
       tially  formed  result  in the interpreter's result area.  If the trace
       procedure does anything that could damage this result (such as  calling
       Tcl_Eval)  then	it  must save the original values of the interpreter's
       result and freeProc fields and restore them before it returns.

UNDEFINED VARIABLES
       It is legal to set a trace on an undefined variable.  The variable will
       still appear to be undefined until the first time its value is set.  If
       an undefined variable is traced and then unset,	the  unset  will  fail
       with  an error (“no such variable”), but the trace procedure will still
       be invoked.

TCL_TRACE_DESTROYED FLAG
       In an unset callback to proc, the TCL_TRACE_DESTROYED  bit  is  set  in
       flags if the trace is being removed as part of the deletion.  Traces on
       a variable are always removed whenever the variable  is	deleted;   the
       only  time  TCL_TRACE_DESTROYED	is  not set is for a whole-array trace
       invoked when only a single element of an array is unset.

TCL_INTERP_DESTROYED
       When an interpreter is destroyed, unset traces are called  for  all  of
       its  variables.	 The TCL_INTERP_DESTROYED bit will be set in the flags
       argument passed to the trace  procedures.   Trace  procedures  must  be
       extremely  careful  in  what they do if the TCL_INTERP_DESTROYED bit is
       set.  It is not safe for the procedures to invoke any Tcl procedures on
       the  interpreter, since its state is partially deleted.	All that trace
       procedures should do under these circumstances is to clean up and  free
       their own internal data structures.

BUGS
       Tcl  does  not  do  any error checking to prevent trace procedures from
       misusing the interpreter during traces with TCL_INTERP_DESTROYED set.

       Array traces are not yet integrated with the Tcl info  exists  command,
       nor is there Tcl-level access to array traces.

KEYWORDS
       clientData, trace, variable

Tcl				      7.4		       Tcl_TraceVar(3)
[top]
                             _         _         _ 
                            | |       | |       | |     
                            | |       | |       | |     
                         __ | | __ __ | | __ __ | | __  
                         \ \| |/ / \ \| |/ / \ \| |/ /  
                          \ \ / /   \ \ / /   \ \ / /   
                           \   /     \   /     \   /    
                            \_/       \_/       \_/ 
More information is available in HTML format for server AIX

List of man pages available for AIX

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net