In the Io language, how can you see the implementation of "if"?
iolanguage, reflection
Solution
I gave a talk to a group in New York a while back which included a cleanroom implementation of `if` if you're curious about the mechanics. You can see it here.
More directly, when you see:
` ==> Object_if() `
In the REPL, what that's telling you is that `if` is a symbol bound to the object `Object` which is implemented in C. That is to say, the "method" is actually a `CFunction` object, and not a `Block` object. Only `Block` objects show their source in the REPL.
Problem
I was poking around some of Core and Object using "getSlot("method name") to see how some foundational methods were implemented. I was curious about how the if method was written and tried ``` Io> Object getSlot("if") ==> Object_if() Io> Object getSlot("Object_if()") ==> nil ``` Neither of these were informative. Is there a way to reflect/inspect/print this (and other Object_keywordishword() words)?