February 28, 2025

Smalltalk Blocks

 

Here is another example of a Dialog class message.

Dialog request: 'Enter an amount'
       initialAnswer: '1000'
       onCancel: [Dialog warn: 'You must enter a valid number']

The message answer is '1000', or whatever input the user enters before pressing OK
or nil if user cancels

Dialogue box with output: Enter amount and 1000 in the field

 

The request:initialAnswer:onCancel message selector takes three arguments. The final argument [Dialog warn: 'You must enter a valid number'] is a block. Blocks are objects, instances of the class BlockClosure. If the user cancels the dialogue box, the code inside the block is executed. This occurs because the block is sent a value message from within the request:initialAnswer:onCancel method.

Evaluating

[Dialog warn: 'You must enter a valid number'] value

will produce this

Dialogue box with output: You must enter a valid number

 

Blocks are sometimes referred to as methods without a name and they are used to implement the concept of conditional selection or branching.

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