[chuck-users] object / class hacking

[Kassen]

Hans;

What is the difference exactly between .cap() and .size() ?
>>
>
> Don't know. I just needed array size, and started using size() :-).
>

Working from memory;

In previous versions of ChucK .cap() could be used to get the length of the
array, it could also (undocumentedly) be used to (re)set the length though
at the expense of re-initialising all elements.

In 1.2.1.2 .size() was added which can be used exactly like .cap() to get
the size of the array. It is overloaded to set the size, which should not
re-initialise the existing elements (this works as far as I'm aware) and
which should initialise any new ones added (this does not always happen in
practice). In the meantime .cap() is no longer overloaded to set array
length.

Why this is like it is I don't know, in theory it might have broken some
code, like how we could set all array elements of a array of type int to 0
while maintaining the same length using this;
foo.cap( foo.cap() );

more generally; using that we could re-initialise all elements without being
aware of the type of the array. In practice I never heard about this
resulting in any complaints.

The current situation, however, *is* a bit unclear (if much preferable to
the old one). I can see how potentially breaking code would be preferable to
dramatically changing it's functionality without warning but I'm not sure
that is the reasoning that led to the choices made.

Personally I use .cap() to get lengths and .size( int) to set them, purely
for readability reasons.

Yours,
Kas.
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