The Interface Repository classes introduce nine new methods, which are briefly described below. Many of the classes simply override methods to customize them for the corresponding IDL element; this is particularly true for classes representing IDL elements that are only contained within another syntactic element. Full descriptions of each method are found in the SOMobjects Developer Toolkit: Programmers Reference Manual.

• Contained class methods (all IR objects are instances of this class and exhibit this behavior):

  describe

  Returns a structure of type Description containing all information defined in the IDL specification of the syntactic element corresponding to the target Contained object. For example, for a target InterfaceDef object, the describe method returns information about the IDL interface declaration. The Description structure contains a "name" field with an identifier that categorizes the description (such as, "InterfaceDescription") and a "value" field holding an "any" structure that points to another structure containing the IDL information for that particular element (in this example, the interface's IDL specifications).
  within
  Returns a sequence designating the object(s) of the IR within which the target Contained object is contained. For example, for a target TypeDef object, it might be contained within any other IR object(s) except an OperationDef object.
  
  Container class methods (some IR objects contain other objects and exhibit this behavior):

  contents

  Returns a sequence of pointers to the object(s) of the IR that the target Container object contains. (For example, for a target InterfaceDef object, the contents method returns a pointer to each IR object that corresponds to a part of the IDL interface declaration.) The method provides options for excluding inherited objects or for limiting the search to only a specified kind of object (such as AttributeDefs).
  describe_contents
  Combines the describe and contents methods; returns a sequence of ContainerDescription structures, one for each object contained by the target Container object. Each structure has a pointer to the related object, as well as "name" and "value" fields resulting from the describe method.
  lookup_name
  Returns a sequence of pointers to objects of a given name contained within a specified Container object, or within (sub)objects contained in the specified Container object.
  
  ModuleDef class methods:
  • Override describe and within.
  
  InterfaceDef class methods:

  describe_interface

  Returns a description of all methods and attributes of a given interface definition object that are held in the Interface Repository.

  Also overrides describe and within.

  
  AttributeDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  OperationDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  ParameterDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  TypeDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  ConstantDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  ExceptionDef class method:
  • Overrides describe.
  
  Repository class methods:

  lookup_id

  Returns the Contained object that has a specified RepositoryId.
  lookup_modifier
  Returns the string value held by a SOM or user-defined modifier, given the name and type of the modifier, and the name of the object that contains the modifier.
  release_cache
  Releases, from the internal object cache, the storage used by all currently unreferenced Interface Repository objects.

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