The tablex Command

The tablex command is used to manage table file format handler extensions. The command has the following subcommands:

tablex defined

tablex defined format
Tablex.Defined(format)

A boolean check whether a specific table file format is supported by an I/O handler. If the format is not yet known, an attempt is made to locate and auto-load the I/O module. For an equivalent command without auto-loading, see tablex exists .

tablex exists

tablex exists format
tx.exists()
Tablex.Exists(format)

A boolean check whether a specific table file format is supported by an I/O handler. No attempt is made to auto-load a handler module if it is not already in memory. The name can be the primary name of the table file format, or any recognized alias. For an equivalent command with auto-loading, see tablex defined .

tablex get

tablex get format attribute
Tablex.Get(format,attribute)
tx.get(attribute)
tx.attribute
tx[attribute]

Query the value of an attribute of the table file format handler. The list of supported attributes is described in the section on the tablex set command.

If the format is not yet known, an attempt is made to auto-load it.

tablex list

tablex list ?pattern?
Tablex.List(?pattern=?)

Return a list of all currently supported table formats, including those handled by built-in format handlers. If desired, the list can be filtered by a string pattern.

tablex load

tablex load format ?objectfile?
tablex load all
Tablex.Load(format,?objectfile?)
Tablex.Load(“all”)

Explicitly load a table file format handler module. If the module is already loaded, the current version is unloaded first. If no specific object file (a shared library on Unix/Linux, a DLL on Windows, a bundle file for MacOSX) is specified, the standard name of the module file is automatically generated from the data type name, and then the file searched in the directories in the data type handler module path. The module search path can be customized in the control variable ::cactvs(tablexpath) .

For Tcl , the return value of the command is the slot in the table file format module table the module has been loaded into. This corresponds to the value of the slot attribute which can be queried via tablex get . For Python , the return value is a module reference.

The second form of the command scans the currently set table format extension search path and loads all accessible modules which are not yet in memory. Modules which are already active in the running application are not unloaded, and only a single instance of each I/O module, even if present under various alias names in the module directories, is loaded. This form of the command does not return a value.

tablex modules

tablex modules ?pattern?
Tilex.Modules(?pattern=?)

This is an alias for tablex list .

tablex ref

Tablex.Ref(format)

Python -only method to get a reference of the module, which allows terser attribute retrieval commands and other operations.

tablex reload

tablex reload format ?objectfile?
Tablex.Reload(format,?objectfile?,...)

A variant of the tablex load command which fails if the I/O module was not previously loaded. There is no all variant of this command.

tablex subcommands

tablex subcommands
dir(Tablex)

Return a list of all supported subcommands of the tablex command in the current interpreter.

tablex set

tablex set format ?attribute value?...
tablex set format dict
Tablex.Set(format,?attribute,value?,...)
Tablex.Set(format,dict)
Tablex.Set(format,attribute=value,...)
tx.set(?attribute,value?,...)
tx.set(dict)
tx.set(attribute=value,...)
tx.attribute = value
tx[attribute] = value

Set one or more attributes of the table file format handler. Some attributes are read-only. They are still listed here because the tablex get command refers to this section. The following attributes are recognized:

tablex unload

tablex unload ?format?...
tx.unload()
Tablex.Unload(?txref/format?,...)

Unload one or more table file format handler modules. It is an error to specify the name of a module which is not loaded. Built-in modules cannot be unloaded.

The return value is the number of unloaded modules.