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authorArnold D. Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com>2017-01-03 21:55:34 +0200
committerArnold D. Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com>2017-01-03 21:55:34 +0200
commit89ddac3e53fa2c74cdad8bb601293870ecd3324c (patch)
tree23bdf91942f53674ac3e0399c8e38ce5df6e78a5 /doc/gawktexi.in
parent721922d8f4b0c62501224867da92afe654d6cdd5 (diff)
parente015d30d0e2a1697789f40a4999a6c8d857a9e6a (diff)
downloadegawk-89ddac3e53fa2c74cdad8bb601293870ecd3324c.tar.gz
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Merge branch 'master' into feature/fix-comments
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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,