Interpreted C++, Object Oriented Tcl, What next?
Dean Sheehan (deans@x.co.uk)
IXI Visionware, Vision Park, Cambridge,
CB4 4ZR, England.
Abstract
Tcl is an interpreted high level language suitable for scripts, small
scale systems, prototypes and embedding in larger applications. C++ is
a powerful compiled language that provides support for object oriented
programming and is suitable for building large complex systems. But
what if you could move from C++ to Tcl and back again with the ease of
an object reference and a dynamically bound function?
This paper describes an extension to Tcl, or an extension to C++
depending on your perspective, that makes it possible to:
- use object oriented programming concepts in Tcl
- inherit from C++ classes (with dynamic binding of methods) in Tcl
- instantiate C++ classes from Tcl
- invoke methods upon C++ objects from Tcl
- delete C++ objects from Tcl
- pass Tcl objects to C++ for method invocation and deletion.
The name of this extension (Tcl++ was rejected) is Object Tcl.
Download the full text of this paper in
ASCII (33,836 bytes) and
POSTSCRIPT (171,529 bytes) form.
To Become a USENIX Member, please see our
Membership Information.