[comp.windows.news] invisible class variables

pett@socrates.ucsf.edu (Eric Pettersen%CGL) (10/18/88)

        I've come across an annoying shortcoming in the NeWS class mechanism
implementation.  There is no clean way to access the class variables of a
superclass while a subclass is being defined.  They are not available at class
definition time, not even via "super send".  It would seem logical to me that
one should be able to define the class variables of a subclass in terms of the
class variables of the superclass.  Is there a good reason a subclass
definition should not be able to get the superclass class variables?

                                Eric Pettersen
                                pett@cgl.ucsf.edu
                                ...!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!pett

matheny@Unisyn.COM (John Matheny) (10/19/88)

In article <11188@cgl.ucsf.EDU> pett@socrates.ucsf.edu (Eric Pettersen%CGL) writes:
>... There is no clean way to access the class variables of a
>superclass while a subclass is being defined.

Unfortunately, "super" is not defined while defining a subclass.  A
kludge I have used is to name explicitly the class that the variable
is in instead of using "super".  So, to access "Foo" in the parent
class "ParentClass" you can use "/Foo ParentClass send".
-- 
John Matheny  Internet: matheny@Unisyn.COM  UUCP: uunet!unisyn!matheny
Unisyn, Inc., 3300 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO  80301   +1 303 443 7878