Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!yale!eagle!rsilverman
From: rsilverman@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: seeing dictionary names
Message-ID: <12063@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 90 22:43:08 GMT
References: <7986@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> <3295@hcx1.SSD.CSD.HARRIS.COM> <1085@chinacat.Lonestar.ORG>
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In article <1085@chinacat.Lonestar.ORG>, woody@chinacat.Lonestar.ORG (Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal) writes:

> Exactly how can you extract the name of
> the dictinary from the  dstackarray, or for that matter, any dictionary
> that is on the dictionary stack.  Typically, you get --dictionary--.
> ...is there a clean, known way to find it?

Woody,

The problem is, there is no "it" to find.  A dictionary is an object; it has a
size, keys, associated values, etc...but no name, intrinsically.  A dictionary
only has a name inasmuch as someone may happen to have bound a reference to it
to a name in a dictionary somewhere.  There might be several such "names," or
none at all.  If all you've got is the dictionary object itself, all you can do
is compare it to other dictionary objects bound elsewhere to names, and see if
you can find one of its "names," or just recognize it by its contents ("oh, of
course, this is userdict!").

                                                Richard Silverman

arpa:	rsilverman@eagle.wesleyan.edu           Systems Engineer
bitnet:	rsilverman@wesleyan.bitnet              AM Computer Products
CIS:	[72727,453]                             Southington, CT 06489