6.10.9.6 User-defined TO and DEFER@

Gforth allows you to change the (to) action of a word.

(to) ( val xt –  ) gforth-1.0 “paren-to”

xt is of a value like word name. Stores val to name.

doc-set-to

(to) is a word used inside to: it stores the value at run-time. The general stack effect of (to) method is ( val xt -- ), where xt identifies the word stored into, and val is the value (of appropriate type) stored there.

E.g., one can implement fvalue as follows:

     : fvalue-to ( r xt -- )
       >body f! ;
     
     : fvalue ( r "name" -- ; name: -- r )
       create f,
       ['] f@ set-does>
       ['] fvalue-to set-to ;
     
     5e fvalue foo
     : bar foo 1e f+ to foo ;
     see bar

(To) is also known as defer! (called by is, see Deferred Words), so you can use it to implement variations of deferred words. You also need to change defer@ then, and you can do that, too:

doc-set-defer