Andrew, tcl prcs, those defined with proc, have required parameters first, because they are passed in to the proc in order. Following that are parameters which have defaults defined for them:
proc my_proc { param1 param2 {param3 "a"} {param4 "b"} } {
# do something
}
But I don't see what you are talking about WRT the string and clock commands. The order is:
- command
- subcommand
- switches
- required_positional_params
- optional_positional_params
The string command does have a few switches which require a value, just like unix command switches. And the order is the same format as unix commands. There are no named parameters in unix commands.
In contrast, db_multirow, defined via ad_proc has optional switches, followed by unnamed positional params, followed by more optional switches, followed by a required 'code_block' param, followed by an optional param:
db_multirow [ -local ] [ -append ] [ -extend column_list ]
var-name statement-name sql
[ -bind bind_set_id | -bind bind_value_list ] code_block
[ if_no_rows if_no_rows_block ]
The final optional param has to be prefixed with a switch that has a distinct format, missing the beginning '-'.
There can always be good reasons for doing things this way, and I'm not passing judgement on the style. I think the procedure comes with enough documentation to quickly figure out how to use it. But it isn't like tcl or unix command style.
