Using objects

Now we will discover how Red works with objects, which is probably different from what you are used to in classical object-oriented languages, such as Java, C#, Python, and Ruby. But first, we meet the make word.

The make word

In the Using error? section inChapter 4, Code-Controlling Structures, we usedprobeto get more details of a specific error, and this returned an output starting withmake error! [ ... ]. Theerror!is effectively an object that was constructed withmake.

It turns out that make can be used to construct a new value for any datatype. It needs the type and, as a second argument, a specification for that type. This can be a value or a memory allocation, or another specification in the case of datatype!, native!, action!, routine!, and event!

Here are some examples:

;-- see Chapter06/objects.red:
i: make integer!5; == 5    ; (1)
output: make string!1000; == ""   ; (2)
blk: makeblock!20; == []   ; (3)

In line (1), the specification is the integer itself, in line (2), the...