alternative aliases [Re: [fpc-devel] Re: [fpc-pascal] Re: Ideas for namespace implementation]

[Alexander Klenin]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 02:27, Martin <fpc at mfriebe.de> wrote:
> uses Foo in 'lcl' alias 'FooLCL', Foo in 'RTL' alias 'FooRTL'

I think this is a reasonable idea, with the following caveats:

1) I think both aliases and namespaces should be identifiers, not strings
(i.e. quotes are unnecessary distraction).
2) I think that namespace-like syntax is preferable, i.e.
"LCL.Foo", not "Foo in LCL"., additionally, I do think it would do no harm
to let programmer use "namespaced" unit without alias.
3) Finally, after a slight variation of syntax to avoid extra 'alias' keyword,
we arrive at the following proposed syntax:

uses
  FooLCL=LCL.Foo, RTL.Foo;

begin
   FooLCL.proc();
   RTL.Foo.proc();
end.

which is quite similar to already existing 'alias' feature for types:

type
  TFooLCL=LCLUnit.TFoo;

begin
   TFooLCL.Create();
   RTLUnit.TFoo.Create();
end.


-- 
Alexander S. Klenin