Daylight v4.9
Release Date: 1 February 2008

Name

dt_ancestor - retrieve the ancestor object of an object

Generic Prototype

dt_ancestor(dt_Handle) => dt_Handle

C Prototype

#include "dt_smiles.h"

dt_Handle dt_ancestor(dt_Handle object)

FORTRAN Prototype

include 'dt_f_smiles.inc'

integer*4 dt_f_ancestor(object)

integer*4 object

Description

Gets the ancestor object of the specified object 'object'. The ancestor is the ultimate base/parent/grandparent of a given object. The ancestor is the root of a hierarchy of related objects.

The ancestor may be used as a representitive of a collection of inter- dependent objects. Examples are for multithreading, where the ancestor is the object which should be locked/unlocked using mutexes to control object access.

Interestingly, if an ancestor object is deallocated, all of it's related dependent objects get deallocated.

Return Value

Returns the handle of the ancestor object. The ancestor may be itself. Returns NULL_OB if the given argument is invalid.

Related Topics

dt_base(3) dt_parent(3)