Topic: access to components of a data object

Summary

Accessing a component of a data object is like accessing an environment's component with the environment explicitly named. Dot notation or 'of' modifiers are frequently used. An interesting alternative is specifying components as a record extractor on the left hand side of a replace. Components may access syntactic attributes e.g., the number of characters in the variable's name. (cbb 5/80)

Subtopic: names in context of a record

QuoteRef: wirtN1_1971 ;;54 in Pascal, WITH record-variable DO, all ids assumed first within record

Subtopic: allowing access to members creates an implementation of an abstract class

Quote: if functions directly read or write members, they can make a class an implementation instead of an abstraction

Subtopic: protected members

Quote: encapsulation should guard the integrity of the protected component or its owner [»alexRT1_2000]

Subtopic: members are function calls

Quote: to the client, Dylan slots are indistinguishable from function calls [»grayDN5_1998]

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