Object Attributes

Attributes are small pieces of data which fall outside the scope of the sharable data model and thus cannot be represented by sets, fields, etc. The meaning of a particular attribute is determined by convention, requiring additional a priori agreement between the writer and the reader, often in the form of documentation or word of mouth.

Any persistent object may have zero or more attributes and each attribute has a name, datatype, element count (as if it were a one dimensional array), and a value. Operations on attributes are largely independent and since attributes are implemented as a scope table, those operations are similar to operations that can be performed on other persistent objects. One restriction on the attribute table, however, is that the attribute can only belong to an object stored in the same scope. This is necessary in order for an object to be able to efficiently find its attributes.

Members

• ss_attr_new [Public function]
• ss_attr_find [Public function]
• ss_attr_count [Public function]
• ss_attr_get [Public function]
• ss_attr_put [Public function]
• ss_attr_modify [Public function]
• ss_attr_describe [Public function]