Methods introduced by Interface Repository classes

The Interface Repository classes introduce nine new methods, which are briefly described below. Many of the classes simply override methods to customize them for the corresponding IDL element; this is particularly true for classes representing IDL elements that are only contained within another syntactic element. Full descriptions of each method are found in the SOMobjects Developer Toolkit: Programmers Reference Manual.

• Contained class methods (all IR objects are instances of this class and exhibit this behavior):

  describe

  Returns a structure of type Description containing all information defined in the IDL specification of the syntactic element corresponding to the target Contained object. For example, for a target InterfaceDef object, the describe method returns information about the IDL interface declaration. The Description structure contains a "name" field with an identifier that categorizes the description (such as, "InterfaceDescription") and a "value" field holding an "any" structure that points to another structure containing the IDL information for that particular element (in this example, the interface's IDL specifications).
  within
  Returns a sequence designating the object(s) of the IR within which the target Contained object is contained. For example, for a target TypeDef object, it might be contained within any other IR object(s) except an OperationDef object.
  
  Container class methods (some IR objects contain other objects and exhibit this behavior):

  contents

  Returns a sequence of pointers to the object(s) of the IR that the target Container object contains. (For example, for a target InterfaceDef object, the contents method returns a pointer to each IR object that corresponds to a part of the IDL interface declaration.) The method provides options for excluding inherited objects or for limiting the search to only a specified kind of object (such as AttributeDefs).
  describe_contents
  Combines the describe and contents methods; returns a sequence of ContainerDescription structures, one for each object contained by the target Container object. Each structure has a pointer to the related object, as well as "name" and "value" fields resulting from the describe method.
  lookup_name
  Returns a sequence of pointers to objects of a given name contained within a specified Container object, or within (sub)objects contained in the specified Container object.
  
  ModuleDef class methods:
  • Override describe and within.
  
  InterfaceDef class methods:

  describe_interface

  Returns a description of all methods and attributes of a given interface definition object that are held in the Interface Repository.

  Also overrides describe and within.

  
  AttributeDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  OperationDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  ParameterDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  TypeDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  ConstantDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  ExceptionDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  Repository class methods:

  lookup_id

  Returns the Contained object that has a specified RepositoryId.
  lookup_modifier
  Returns the string value held by a SOM or user-defined modifier, given the name and type of the modifier, and the name of the object that contains the modifier.
  release_cache
  Releases, from the internal object cache, the storage used by all currently unreferenced Interface Repository objects.

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