A system object is an object which may require direct access to local representations of remote objects. That is, objects for which the transparency of remote references is not always desirable. The method sstIsSystemObject defines whether or not the receiver is a system object. Objects such as inspectors and debuggers return true to this message.

The value returned is used by operations such as printOn: to determine if they have been invoked as the result of some processing in a system object. If they have, then the operation can choose to do a different calculation. For example, printOn:, when sent to a remote reference as part of a debugger operation will not send any remote messages. Instead, some suitable alternative is produced based on locally available information.

While this capability is useful, it is statically defined. There may be situations in which you do not want your inspectors to be treated as system objects. To facilitate this, SST provides the inspectorsAreSystemObjects property in SstToolsSupport class. This option can be set from the SST menu or in code using the following expression:

This option can also be set using the SST menu choice Inspectors Are System Objects.