Re: [Webmacro-devel] Re: [Melati-developers] WebMacro Test Case: TestSharedOutputStream

[<Web...@St...>]

On Sun, 4 Apr 2004, Eric Ridge wrote:

| On Apr 4, 2004, at 8:58 PM, Endre St=F8lsvik wrote:
| > It=B4s getting clearer..
| >
| > When I make a Macro, and shove this thing into the context as "Rock",
| > when
| > I do $Rock, or $Rock.roll, what happens?? This is, I assume, the most
| > used way to use Macro?
|
| If you initially called Template.write(out, context), then the .write()
| method is getting called in your $Rock Macro.  And that method calls
| it's .evaluate() method to get the value to write:
|
| public Object evaluate(Context c) { return "Rock"; }
| public void write(FastWriter fw, Context c) {
| fw.write(this.evaluate(c).toString()); }
|
| That's how it works.

This is getting clearer - but why is "evaluate" there in the first place,
then? Macro is an iface, right? Why are there two methods, if the write
method is the only method called -from the framework- in any case? It
seems like evaluate is just there as a "guide" to how -I- should implemen=
t
write()?? "You should invoke evaluate(...)" - why? I can evaluate -and-
write to the writer in one go, that=B4s how brilliant I am..! ;-)

|
| If you call $Rock.roll, then you're simply asking for the "roll"
| property of the Rock macro (which could be a field, a method, or a
| generic .get() method)... whose .toString() value gets output to the
| template.

That=B4s what I expected - it then just falls back to "normal property
traversal" stuff, as with any Object put in the context, right?

Thanks for shedding light on this..

Endre.