C.5.4 Room For Future Growth

The API can later be expanded, in two ways:

• gawk passes an “extension id” into the extension when it first loads the extension. The extension then passes this id back to gawk with each function call. This mechanism allows gawk to identify the extension calling into it, should it need to know.
• Similarly, the extension passes a “name space” into gawk when it registers each extension function. This accommodates a possible future mechanism for grouping extension functions and possibly avoiding name conflicts.

Of course, as of this writing, no decisions have been made with respect to any of the above.