Volume 6A: Motif Programming Manual

Manual, Motif Edition. The string "Push Me" is the string value; the length of the string, including the

NULL−terminating byte, is 8.

The XtVaTypedArg method for specifying a compound string resource is only a programmatic convenience; it does

not save time or improve performance. The three−step process of creating, setting, and freeing the compound string

still takes place, but it happens within Motif's compound string resource converter. Using automatic conversion is

actually slower than converting a string using XmStringCreateLocalized(). However, unless you are creating

hundreds of strings, the difference is negligible. The convenience and elegance of the XtVaTypedArg method may

be worth the performance tradeoff.

The reason most of the examples in this book do not make use of the feature is that we are trying to demonstrate good

programming techniques tuned to a large−scale, production−size, and quality application. Using the XtVaTypedArg

method for compound strings is painfully slow when repeated over hundreds of Labels, PushButtons, Lists, and other

widgets. The XtVaTypedArg method is perfectly reasonable for converting other types of resources, however. If

you are converting a lot of values from one type to another, it is in your own best interest to evaluate the conversion

process yourself by testing the automatic versus the manual conversion methods.

20.2.2 Font List Tags

Motif provides two different compound string creation routines that allow you to specify a tag used to associate ...