The text shown by the online manual uses some notational conventions. The various overview tools indicate candidate documentation cards with a summary line. This line is of the form:
<Identifier> <Formal Description> [``<Summary>'']
The `Identifier' is a single letter indicating the nature of the documentation card. The defined identifiers are: Browser (Manual Tool), Class, Example, Keyword, Method, Object, Predicate, Resource, Topic and Variable (instance-variable).
The `Formal Description' is a short description derived from the described object itself:
V class - selector: type | Variable that cannot be accessed directly |
V class <- selector: type | Variable that may be read, but not written |
V class <->selector: type | Variable that may be read and written |
V class ->selector: type | Variable that may only be written |
M class ->selector: type
... | Send-Method with argument-types |
M class <- selector: type
... -->type | Get-Method with argument-types returning value of type |
| R Class.attribute: type | Class-variable with type |
The same notational conventions are used in the running text of a card. See section 3.3.2.
XPCE
is a partially typed language. Types may be defined for both method
arguments and instance variables. A type is represented by an instance
of class type. XPCE
defines a conversion to create type objects from a textual
representation. A full description of this conversion may be found in
the online manual (method `type<-convert').
In this document we will summarise the most important types:
For example, the ->initialise method of a
graphical text object has type declaration:
[char_array], [{left,center,right}], [font]
The first argument is an instance of class char_array, the super-class of name and string. The second argument either `left', `center' or `right' and the last argument is a font object. All arguments are between square brackets and may thus be omitted.