[IronPython] ScriptScope.SetVariable tip

[Steve Dower]

Just sharing something I discovered today that surprised me a little.

I use ScriptScopes extensively throughout my hosted code to try and
prevent interaction between separate scripts. In most cases, since I'm
dealing with user-provided keys, I don't cast them to dynamic but
access their contents through GetVariable() and SetVariable().

Dynamic lookup is still available though, and appears to be applied
partway through overload resolution:

1. Non-dynamic members with exact parameter match - eg.
scope.SetVariable(string, object)
2. Dynamic members
3. Non-dynamic members with casts required - eg.
scope.SetVariable(string, something castable to object)

The result of this being that if you set a variable with a value that
derives from object, you pay for a dynamic lookup (which includes an
exception, which is how I noticed this). Casting the value to object
(ie. scope.SetVariable("value", (object)value)) avoids this, and you
only get the penalty for failing to find the existing variable (unless
it already exists, obviously).


Now, to see if I can reduce those endless StopIteration exceptions...