(⬑Table of Contents)

API Index

Index of whcl APIs:

• Builtin Commands and Values
• Builtin Types

Static Modules

By default, non-core APIs are built into the library but not installed in the interpreter by default (to reduce the engine startup costs by adding features most scripts won't use). One of the core APIs, however, is:

whcl install-api

which accepts one or more string arguments which name supplemental APIs to load. It throws if passed a name it does not know. They can be loaded as needed and loading them more than once is a harmless no-op. The result of this call is the value associated with the final module it loads. If called with no arguments, it instead returns a space-delimited string of all modules known by that function. From script code that string can be turned into an array with [the-string split ' '].

Each module this function installs becomes available in the whcl[MODULE_NAME] property, but the exact type of each of those is unspecified. They are typically an object with multiple functions but may be a single function or even a single value.

The list of modules is hard-coded at build time. The standard list of modules loadable this way is (in alphabetical order):

• fs: Filesytem APIs
• json: JSON APIs
• math: C99 Math APIs
• os: OS/Environment-related APIs
• ob: Output Buffering (OB) APIs
• PathFinder: The PathFinder class searches for files
• require: a "dependency and resource loader" akin to require.js
• Script: The Script class compiles scripts
• time: Time-related APIs
• tmpl: An API for creating scripted doc templates

In addition, it might, depending on build-time configuration, have any or all of the available loadable modules also built into the library, available for use with install-api. (Those are never built in to the amalgamation dstribution, however.)

Example usage:

$ whcl install-api fs ob; # installs whcl[fs] and whcl[ob]
$ decl x [whcl install-api time]; # $x == whcl[time]
$ foreach m [[whcl install-api].split ' '] { echo $m }

Sidebar: if one of those APIs relies on another one, it will trigger the installation of any dependencies, if needed.

Loadable Modules (DLLs)

WHCL supports loading modules which are compiled as DLLs. The interface for doing so is described in the loadable modules docs.