Global Script has a short import syntax that looks like this:
import m.f; -- > 'f = m.f;
import type m.t -- > type 't = m.t;
import module m.n -- > module 'n = module m.n;
I quite like this syntax; it has the nice bonus that, if you do need a string of imports, by formatting them this way:
import xml.parser.attribute;
import xml.parser.cdata;
import xml.parser.element;
you can alphabetize the import list by piping the entire code segment by M-2 on
|sort. As an added bonus, this respects module names as well. This is fairly straight-forward to parse: take a name after the
import keyword, check that it has multiple components, split it into a module name and a field name on the final component division, check that the field name is a valid function name, and store the module name and function name separately.
This syntax really only doesn't work for two cases:
- Importing everything from a module, and
- Importing a qualified name from a module.
For the second case, we can just say the programmer can suck it up and write:
'n.f = m.n.f;
For the first case, we can use the fact that spaces are never legal in identifiers to permit a syntax like:
import m ..;
The problem is that if we see
ReplyDeleteimport
that might be followed by either a name or a module name. A better syntax would be
import <name> (from <module name>)?;
where
import m.f;
is a more-convenient short-hand for
import f from m;
This solves the import-everything problem by allowing substitution of .. for f:
import .. from m;
We solve the import-multiples problem by allowing a comma-terminated list to be substitued for f:
import f, g, h, from m;
Strip the from keyword. Keywords are bad.
ReplyDeleteimport f, g, h m;
The break in the commafication indicates that the next thing is a module to import. Or, better,
import (f, g, h,) m;
or just
import f m;
This lets us use standard ACNE sequences.