[REBOL] Nested objects

From: gavin::mckenzie::sympatico::ca at: 27-Jun-2001 7:40

Hi,

I'm not sure how to do this...

Say, I've got a bunch of nested objects that I setup conveniently using
syntax like:

obj: make object! [
    foo: 1
    bar: 2
    nested-object:
    make object! [
        abc: 3
        xyz: 4
    ]
]

Now, I want all of my inner objects to have a property that ties them to
their parent objects.  I went looking to see if there was such a built-in
property, but the only automatic property of objects appears to be the word
'self'.

So, I know that I can easily enough write a routine that walks my tree of
nested objects and attempts to wire them together, but I was hoping that
there was a way I could get it to happen either:
a) automatically
b) with a little extra work when I define the objects; something like:

obj: make object! [
    foo: 1
    bar: 2
    nested-object:
    make object! [
        parent: obj
        abc: 3
        xyz: 4
    ]
]

That approach seemed promising, except that it seems that parent doesn't
hold a reference to the same 'obj' object, rather it holds a copy.  My
testing shows that if I change obj/foo to another value, that
obj/nested-object/parent/foo hasn't changed value.

Any thoughts?

Maybe I'm missing something rather straightforward.

Regards,

Gavin.

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