aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/doc/gawktexi.in
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/gawktexi.in')
-rw-r--r--doc/gawktexi.in8
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/gawktexi.in b/doc/gawktexi.in
index d8f10f76..9967c5a2 100644
--- a/doc/gawktexi.in
+++ b/doc/gawktexi.in
@@ -31632,6 +31632,14 @@ When an extension creates a strnum value, the result is a string flagged
as user input. Subsequent parsing by @command{gawk} then determines whether it
looks like a number and should be treated as a strnum, or as a regular string.
+This is useful in cases where an extension function would like to do something
+comparable to the @code{split()} function which sets the user input attribute
+on the array elements it creates. For example, an extension that implements
+CSV splitting would want to use this feature. This is also useful for a
+function that retrieves a data item from a database. The PostgreSQL
+@code{PQgetvalue()} function, for example, returns a string that may be numeric
+or textual depending on the contents.
+
Typed regexp values (@pxref{Strong Regexp Constants}) are not of
much use to extension functions. Extension functions can tell that
they've received them, and create them for scalar values. Otherwise,