diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/gawktexi.in')
-rw-r--r-- | doc/gawktexi.in | 8 |
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, |