Using objects Objects are user-defined types which are associated with user- defined functions to manipulate them. Object types are defined similarly to structures in C, and consist of one or more elements. The advantage of an object is that the user-defined routines are automatically called by the calculator for various operations, such as addition, multiplication, and printing. Thus they can be manipulated by the user as if they were just another kind of number. An example object type is "surd", which represents numbers of the form a + b*sqrt(D), where D is a fixed integer, and 'a' and 'b' are arbitrary rational numbers. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division can be performed on such numbers, and the result can be put unambiguously into the same form. (Complex numbers are an example of surds, where D is -1.) The "obj" statement defines either an object type or an actual variable of that type. When defining the object type, the names of its elements are specified inside of a pair of braces. To define the surd object type, the following could be used: obj surd {a, b}; Here a and b are the element names for the two components of the surd object. When an object is created, the elements are all defined with null values. A user-defined routine should be provided which will place useful values in the elements. For example, for an object of type 'surd', a function called 'surd' can be defined to set the two components as follows: define surd(a, b) { local x; obj surd x; x.a = a; x.b = b; return x; } When an operation is attempted for an object, user functions with particular names are automatically called to perform the operation. These names are created by concatenating the object type name and the operation name together with an underscore. For example, when multiplying two objects of type surd, the function "surd_mul" is called. The user function is called with the necessary arguments for that operation. For example, for "surd_mul", there are two arguments, which are the two numbers. The order of the arguments is always the order of the binary operands. If only one of the operands to a binary operator is an object, then the user function for that object type is still called. If the two operands are of different object types, then the user function that is called is the one for the first operand. The above rules mean that for full generality, user functions should detect that one of their arguments is not of its own object type by using the 'istype' function, and then handle these cases specially. In this way, users can mix normal numbers with object types. (Functions which only have one operand don't have to worry about this.) The following example of "surd_mul" demonstrates how to handle regular numbers when used together with surds: define surd_mul(a, b) { local x; obj surd x; if (!istype(a, x)) { /* a not of type surd */ x.a = b.a * a; x.b = b.b * a; } else if (!istype(b, x)) { /* b not of type surd */ x.a = a.a * b; x.b = a.b * b; } else { /* both are surds */ x.a = a.a * b.a + D * a.b * b.b; x.b = a.a * b.b + a.b * b.a; } if (x.b == 0) return x.a; /* normal number */ return x; /* return surd */ } In order to print the value of an object nicely, a user defined routine can be provided. For small amounts of output, the print routine should not print a newline. Also, it is most convenient if the printed object looks like the call to the creation routine. For output to be correctly collected within nested output calls, output should only go to stdout. This means use the 'print' statement, the 'printf' function, or the 'fprintf' function with 'files(1)' as the output file. For example, for the "surd" object: define surd_print(a) { print "surd(" : a.a : "," : a.b : ")" : ; } It is not necessary to provide routines for all possible operations for an object, if those operations can be defaulted or do not make sense for the object. The calculator will attempt meaningful defaults for many operations if they are not defined. For example, if 'surd_square' is not defined to square a number, then 'surd_mul' will be called to perform the squaring. When a default is not possible, then an error will be generated. Please note: Arguments to object functions are always passed by reference (as if an '&' was specified for each variable in the call). Therefore, the function should not modify the parameters, but should copy them into local variables before modifying them. This is done in order to make object calls quicker in general. The double-bracket operator can be used to reference the elements of any object in a generic manner. When this is done, index 0 corresponds to the first element name, index 1 to the second name, and so on. The 'size' function will return the number of elements in an object. The following is a list of the operations possible for objects. The 'xx' in each function name is replaced with the actual object type name. This table is displayed by the 'show objfuncs' command. Name Args Comments xx_print 1 print value, default prints elements xx_one 1 multiplicative identity, default is 1 xx_test 1 logical test (false,true => 0,1), default tests elements xx_add 2 xx_sub 2 subtraction, default adds negative xx_neg 1 negative xx_mul 2 xx_div 2 non-integral division, default multiplies by inverse xx_inv 1 multiplicative inverse xx_abs 2 absolute value within given error xx_norm 1 square of absolute value xx_conj 1 conjugate xx_pow 2 integer power, default does multiply, square, inverse xx_sgn 1 sign of value (-1, 0, 1) xx_cmp 2 equality (equal,non-equal => 0,1), default tests elements xx_rel 2 inequality (less,equal,greater => -1,0,1) xx_quo 2 integer quotient xx_mod 2 remainder of division xx_int 1 integer part xx_frac 1 fractional part xx_inc 1 increment, default adds 1 xx_dec 1 decrement, default subtracts 1 xx_square 1 default multiplies by itself xx_scale 2 multiply by power of 2 xx_shift 2 shift left by n bits (right if negative) xx_round 2 round to given number of decimal places xx_bround 2 round to given number of binary places xx_root 3 root of value within given error xx_sqrt 2 square root within given error Also see the library files: dms.cal mod.cal poly.cal quat.cal surd.cal