The topological characterization of chaos is applied to the irregular pulsations of a model for a star of the W Virginis type, computed with a state-of-the-art numerical hydrodynamical code. The banded W Vir attractor is found to possess an additional twist when compared to the Rossler band. It is shown that the stellar light-curve contains the same dynamical information about the attractor as the stellar radius or as the radial velocity variations. (c) 1996 American Institute of Physics.