AddingNewMOOTypes.txt

There are a number of places in the server that have to be changed when adding
a new type of MOO value; this file attempts to list all of them for easy
reference.

First, though, it is important to realize that there are several types of MOO
values that are invisible to MOO programmers; they are used for a variety of
purposes internally in the virtual machine or database, and they can appear in
the DB file on disk, but they are never the value of a MOO expression.  Adding
one of these `invisible' types involves only a few changes to the server.
Adding one of the other kind, though, the `visible' types of values that *can*
be the value of a MOO expression, involves a number of additional changes, as
seen below.

For all new types, both visible and invisible, you must:
-- add an item *at the end* of the `var_type' enumeration in structures.h
-- perhaps add a clause to the union in `struct Var' in structures.h
-- add a case to each of dbio_read_var() and dbio_write_var(), in db_io.c
-- if you're adding a refcounted type, modify var_refcount() and
   refcount_overhead() in storage.c
-- also add a case to each of complex_free_var(), complex_var_ref(),
   and complex_var_dup() in utils.c

In addition, for visible types, you must:
-- consider adding a new built-in MOO variable like OBJ, STR, and LIST:
	-- add a new SLOT_XXX constant *at the end* of the list in sym_table.h
	-- add a new DB version number *just before the end* of the
	   `DB_Version' enumeration in version.h
	-- add a version-contingent clause to fill_in_rt_consts(),
	   in eval_env.c
	-- add a version-contingent clause to each of new_builtin_names() and
	   first_user_slot(), in sym_table.c
-- consider adding a new kind of MOO literal or expression that produces values
   of the new type.
-- add a case to each of list2str() and print_to_stream(), in list.c; the
   former is used by the MOO function tostr() and the latter by toliteral().
-- add a case to to each of become_integer() and become_float(), in numbers.c;
   the former is used by toint() and toobj() and the latter by tofloat().
-- consider adding a clause to is_true(), equality(), and value_bytes(),
   in utils.c; the first implements MOO's notion of truth values, the second is
   used in the `==' and `!=' expressions and the equals() function, and the
   third is used in the MOO function of the same name.