Tcl_GetIndexFromObj(3tcl)				      Tcl Library Procedures					 Tcl_GetIndexFromObj(3tcl)

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NAME

       Tcl_GetIndexFromObj, Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct - lookup string in table of keywords

SYNOPSIS

       #include <tcl.h>

       int
       Tcl_GetIndexFromObj(interp, objPtr, tablePtr, msg, flags,
       indexPtr)

       int
       Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct(interp, objPtr, structTablePtr, offset,
				 msg, flags, indexPtr)

ARGUMENTS

       Tcl_Interp *interp (in)			Interpreter to use for error reporting; if NULL, then no message is provided on errors.

       Tcl_Obj *objPtr (in/out) 		The  string  value of this object is used to search through tablePtr.  The internal representation
						is modified to hold the index of the matching table entry.

       const char **tablePtr (in)		An array of null-terminated strings.  The end of the array is marked by a NULL string pointer.

       const void *structTablePtr (in)		An array of arbitrary type, typically some struct type.  The first member of the structure must be
						a null-terminated string.  The size of the structure is given by offset.

       int offset (in)				The offset to add to structTablePtr to get to the next entry.  The end of the array is marked by a
						NULL string pointer.

       const char *msg (in)			Null-terminated string describing what is being  looked  up,  such  as	option.   This	string	is
						included in error messages.

       int flags (in)				OR-ed  combination  of	bits providing additional information for operation.  The only bit that is
						currently defined is TCL_EXACT.

       int *indexPtr (out)			The index of the string in tablePtr that matches the value of objPtr is returned here.
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DESCRIPTION

       This procedure provides an efficient way for looking up keywords, switch names, option names, and similar things  where	the  value  of	an
       object  must  be  one  of a predefined set of values.  ObjPtr is compared against each of the strings in tablePtr to find a match.  A match
       occurs if objPtr's string value is identical to one of the strings in tablePtr, or if it is a non-empty unique abbreviation for exactly one
       of  the strings in tablePtr and the TCL_EXACT flag was not specified; in either case the index of the matching entry is stored at *indexPtr
       and TCL_OK is returned.

       If there is no matching entry, TCL_ERROR is returned and an error message is left in interp's  result  if  interp  is  not  NULL.   Msg	is
       included  in the error message to indicate what was being looked up.  For example, if msg is option the error message will have a form like
       "bad option "firt": must be first, second, or third".

       If Tcl_GetIndexFromObj completes successfully it modifies the internal representation of objPtr to hold the address of the  table  and  the
       index  of the matching entry.  If Tcl_GetIndexFromObj is invoked again with the same objPtr and tablePtr arguments (e.g. during a reinvoca-
       tion of a Tcl command), it returns the matching index immediately without having to redo the lookup operation.	Note:  Tcl_GetIndexFromObj
       assumes	that  the  entries  in tablePtr are static: they must not change between invocations.  If the value of objPtr is the empty string,
       Tcl_GetIndexFromObj will treat it as a non-matching value and return TCL_ERROR.

       Tcl_GetIndexFromObjStruct works just like Tcl_GetIndexFromObj, except that instead of treating tablePtr as an array of string pointers,	it
       treats  it as a pointer to the first string in a series of strings that have offset bytes between them (i.e. that there is a pointer to the
       first array of characters at tablePtr, a pointer to the second array of characters at tablePtr+offset bytes, etc.)   This  is  particularly
       useful when processing things like Tk_ConfigurationSpec, whose string keys are in the same place in each of several array elements.

SEE ALSO

       Tcl_WrongNumArgs

KEYWORDS

       index, object, table lookup

Tcl									8.1						 Tcl_GetIndexFromObj(3tcl)