1. This function returns a property of an external type (types provided by modules or user defined). For the property XPRM_TPROP_NAME, the type name is returned in value->string, for the 3 other properties, the result is returned in value->integer.

2. The type features are bit encoded as follows:

XPRM_MTP_CREAT	Creation function available for this type
XPRM_MTP_DELET	Deletion function available for this type
XPRM_MTP_TOSTR	Type can be converted to a string
XPRM_MTP_FRSTR	Type can be initialized from a string
XPRM_MTP_PRTBL	Type can be converted to a string after execution
XPRM_MTP_RFCNT	Type implements reference count
XPRM_MTP_COPY	Type implements copy: it may be used in assignments
XPRM_MTP_APPND	The copy function of this type supports appending
XPRM_MTP_ORSET	The copy function of this type can only be used to reset an object
XPRM_MTP_PROB	Type is a problem

3. The expanded type is available for user defined types only: it corresponds to the actual type (including structure information) associated to a user defined type code. For instance, assuming the type myset is defined as a set of integer, getting the type expansion for the code associated to myset will give XPRM_STR_SET|XPRM_TYP_INT indicating that a reference to an entity of type myset has to be handled with functions for sets.

4. Trying to get the expanded type of a module type or the features of a user defined type is an error: the function returns 1. This can be used to identify module types.

5. A user type which expanded value is XPRM_STR_REC is a record type. The public fields of a record type may be enumerated with XPRMgetnextfield.

6. A user type which expanded value is XPRM_STR_PROB is a problem type. The components of a problem type may be enumerated with XPRMgetnextpbcomp. Note that problem types are also implemented as native types. In this case, the flag XPRM_MTP_PROB will be set in the type features.