Dynamic strings provide a mechanism for building up arbitrarily long
strings by gradually appending information. If the dynamic string is
short then there will be no memory allocation overhead; as the string
gets larger, additional space will be allocated as needed.
Tcl_DStringInit initializes a dynamic string to zero length.
The Tcl_DString structure must have been allocated by the caller.
No assumptions are made about the current state of the structure;
anything already in it is discarded.
If the structure has been used previously, Tcl_DStringFree should
be called first to free up any memory allocated for the old
string.
Tcl_DStringAppend adds new information to a dynamic string,
allocating more memory for the string if needed.
If length is less than zero then everything in string
is appended to the dynamic string; otherwise length
specifies the number of bytes to append.
Tcl_DStringAppend returns a pointer to the characters of
the new string. The string can also be retrieved from the
string field of the Tcl_DString structure.
Tcl_DStringAppendElement is similar to Tcl_DStringAppend
except that it doesn't take a length argument (it appends
all of string) and it converts the string to a proper list element
before appending.
Tcl_DStringAppendElement adds a separator space before the
new list element unless the new list element is the first in a
list or sub-list (i.e. either the current string is empty, or it
contains the single character ``{'', or the last two characters of
the current string are `` {'').
Tcl_DStringAppendElement returns a pointer to the
characters of the new string.
Tcl_DStringStartSublist and Tcl_DStringEndSublist can be
used to create nested lists.
To append a list element that is itself a sublist, first
call Tcl_DStringStartSublist, then call Tcl_DStringAppendElement
for each of the elements in the sublist, then call
Tcl_DStringEndSublist to end the sublist.
Tcl_DStringStartSublist appends a space character if needed,
followed by an open brace; Tcl_DStringEndSublist appends
a close brace.
Lists can be nested to any depth.
Tcl_DStringLength is a macro that returns the current length
of a dynamic string (not including the terminating null character).
Tcl_DStringValue is a macro that returns a pointer to the
current contents of a dynamic string.
Tcl_DStringSetLength changes the length of a dynamic string.
If newLength is less than the string's current length, then
the string is truncated.
If newLength is greater than the string's current length,
then the string will become longer and new space will be allocated
for the string if needed.
However, Tcl_DStringSetLength will not initialize the new
space except to provide a terminating null character; it is up to the
caller to fill in the new space.
Tcl_DStringSetLength does not free up the string's storage space
even if the string is truncated to zero length, so Tcl_DStringFree
will still need to be called.
Tcl_DStringFree should be called when you're finished using
the string. It frees up any memory that was allocated for the string
and reinitializes the string's value to an empty string.
Tcl_DStringResult sets the result of interp to the value of
the dynamic string given by dsPtr. It does this by moving
a pointer from dsPtr to interp->result.
This saves the cost of allocating new memory and copying the string.
Tcl_DStringResult also reinitializes the dynamic string to
an empty string.
Tcl_DStringGetResult does the opposite of Tcl_DStringResult.
It sets the value of dsPtr to the result of interp and
it clears interp's result.
If possible it does this by moving a pointer rather than by copying
the string.
