scope

Name

itcl::scope — capture the namespace context for a variable

Synopsis

itcl::scope name

Description

Creates a scoped value for the specified name, which must be a variable name. If the name is an instance variable, then the scope command returns a name which will resolve in any context as an instance variable belonging to object. The precise format of this name is an internal detail to Itcl. Use of such a scoped value makes it possible to use instance variables in conjunction with widgets. For example, if you have an object with a private variable x, and you can use x in conjunction with the -textvariable option of an entry widget. Before itcl3.0, only common variables could be used in this manner.

If the name is not an instance variable, then it must be a common variable or a global variable. In that case, the scope command returns the fully qualified name of the variable, e.g., ::foo::bar::x.

If the name is not recognized as a variable, the scope command returns an error.

Ordinary variable names refer to variables in the global namespace. A scoped value captures a variable name together with its namespace context in a way that allows it to be referenced properly later. It is needed, for example, to wrap up variable names when a Tk widget is used within a namespace:

namespace foo {
    private variable mode 1

    radiobutton .rb1 -text "Mode #1" 
        -variable [scope mode] -value 1
    pack .rb1

    radiobutton .rb2 -text "Mode #2" 
        -variable [scope mode] -value 2
    pack .rb2
}

Radiobuttons .rb1 and .rb2 interact via the variable "mode" contained in the namespace "foo". The scope command guarantees this by returning the fully qualified variable name ::foo::mode.

You should never use the @itcl syntax directly. For example, it is a bad idea to write code like this:

set {@itcl ::fred x} 3
puts "value = ${@itcl ::fred x}"

Instead, you should always use the scope command to generate the variable name dynamically. Then, you can pass that name to a widget or to any other bit of code in your program.