Forum .LRN Q&A: Strange Code in LORS

We (Adenu group at Uned) use assessment with LORSM. We use it to add tests to an existing IMS course. Or, What do you mean by "how"?

This code is mostly experimental. Basically if its installed it will allow you to create a couse by hand and add objects from assessment of xowiki into the course.

I can't imagine why that code uses append instead of lappend :) lappend is definitely correct. Each element, as_sections, Questions needs to be a seperate list element too.

set pretty_types_map [list]
if { [apm_package_installed_p assessment] } {
  lappend pretty_types_map as_sections Questions
}
if { [apm_package_installed_p xowiki] } {
  lappend pretty_types_map ::xowiki::Page Content
}

In byte-code compiled cases, [list] is directly compiled into a Tcl_Obj of type list. If {} is used instead if [list], the Tcl_Obj will be of type string and will be converted into a list by the first lappend operation. In the concrete example, the difference is not important, aside from a documentation point of view. In Tcl it is regarded as a good practice to use [list] where appropriate.

Btw, the code above is not very general, since xowiki supports different types of acs-objects, which are not handled by the snippet above. To label these object_types with "Content", one can query the available object_types by :xowiki::Page object_types and provide for these an entry in the map.

if { [apm_package_installed_p xowiki] } {
  foreach object_type [:xowiki::Page object_types] {
     lappend pretty_types_map $object_type Content
  }
}

The code is untested, i have never used LORS.