On Sun, 08 Jun 2014 11:37:04 -0400, Dicebot <pub...@dicebot.lv> wrote:
Finally got to cleanup and submit this PR: https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/3651 While proposed change is very small (and backwards-compatible) and not worth separate DIP, it is still a language change and needs community approval. Copy of description: ======================================== Currently there is no way to use package protection attribute with deeply nested package hierarchy, forcing to either use flat one or public protection. This is one of blocking issues for further usage of package.d in Phobos and one of reasons why namespace hacks are so popular. For example, if helpers in std.internal will be marked as package, only std.internal will be able to access those, but not rest of std. This PR fixes it by allowing package(<pkgname>) syntax to explicitly define owning package. This new syntax will work: --- module std.internal.mod1; package(std) void foo() {} module std.mod2; --- import std.internal.mod2; void bar() { foo(); } ---- Exact semantics can are described by added "protection" tests to test/compilable (last commit in this PR). Plain package behavior is unchanged and thus no breaking changes introduced.
Yes, this becomes more crucial with the idea of splitting up a file seamlessly with the package.d idiom. A file that already has package-accessible functions CANNOT be split up without an improvement like this. Given that nothing can utilize unauthorized functions, you can only give more access to your own functions, I think this is a worthwhile improvement.
-Steve
