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340 :: Feature request: block scoped imports

• brianrogoff (orginal) [2014-01-12T18:23:16+01:00] view original

  Hi,

  I've been experimenting a bit with Nimrod and I mostly like it so far. One feature I miss from some other languages I've used (OCaml, Ada, D) is the ability to put import statements in a block so that they only introduce names in that block and don't pollute the file namespace. Is there some trick I missed for doing this in Nimrod? If not, I'd like to see it in some future release if it isn't too difficult to implement. I think it is obvious why this feature is desirable.

  -- Brian

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• Araq (orginal) [2014-01-12T19:28:43+01:00] view original

  We already have things like from module import foo, bar or import module except foo, adding yet another feature to the module system seems hardly justified. But I'll consider to add it.

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• brianrogoff (orginal) [2014-01-12T20:40:10+01:00] view original

  Thanks. The feature is not easily justified with small examples, so I suspect that any examples I give will appear contrived. It's been added to the languages that I mentioned even though none of them had it at the outset.

  I've seen more than one style guide that advocates always using dot notation and eschewing imports on various SW engineering grounds. I find that by localizing the import such arguments have less force. Here's the snippet of the OCaml manual with its brief rationale

  http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml-4.01/extn.html#sec225

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