3.10 Accessing the Model and Parameter Information

MDL model and parameter classes contain optional documentation in form of MdlStrings which are provided to supply the user and model designer of an application with useful information. To access this information within MDL definitions the following methods are available:

Invoking the MDL class method printInfo inherited from the top level Model parent class, prints a summary comprehending the documentation available for the model class and all its interface parameters. When no MDL instance definition (Section 3.3) is provided for an MDL class instance request (Section 2.3.3), a temporary MDL class instance of the required MDL class type is generated and its printInfo method is called. Additionally the user is automatically informed about the missing MDL class instance.

The documentation of MDL parameters can be accessed in form of a virtual MdlString parameter in MDL expressions by appending the qualifier .Info to the Parameter name. Example 3.16 shows how the documentation of the interface parameter documentedPar is printed by using a local parameter mdlout of the type StdStream:

mdlout << :documentedPar.Info << " n";

Example 3.16: Access to Parameter documentation