identifier prefixing_(re)

Sat, 5 Apr 1997 14:37:41 +0200 (MET DST)

According to Maurice Lombardi:
> 
> I found only one annoying problem: the inexistence of prefixing of
> identifiers (e.g. unit1.proc1) to avoid name conflicts.

This is called "qualified identifiers", and it is planned to be
implemented soon (together with Extended Pascal's `qualified' Module
import and overloading of Procedures/Functions).

> It also allows to redefine locally names of procedure to extend
> some properties

To work around:  With GNU Pascal, you can have the source code of
everything.  It is no problem to rename the routines of Sven's "original"
Graph Unit to something like "Graph_InitGraph" (thus emulating the dot
by using an underscore) - or to build that additional functionality
directly into the Unit you want to improve.

> (I used it extensively to redefine procedures
> of the graph unit to incorporate simultaneous PostScript copy of screen
> functions: this allows to have either fast, screen 
> only drawing, or slower, with PostScript copy, programs without changing
> a single line of code of the main program).

Sounds great!  How about adding this to the GNU Pascal "contrib"
directory?  I am sure there are many people (including myself) who would
greatly appreciate such a "PostScript Graph Unit".

> Do you plan to do this soon, later or never, so that I can make
> a decision whether I need to rewrite the whole stuff with non
> conflicting names or wait until you have done it (I am not in a hurry,
> I can use for some time the Borland compiler). 

I hope that I can finish this in 1997.

> Many thanks anyway for your work: I am no more afraid that
> Pascal will disappear from the surface of earth due to the financial
> problems of Borland. 

Thank you!  :-)  I am doing my best, and so do many people in this list.
If you want to join our attempts - for example by contributing useful
libraries -, be welcome!

Yours,

    Peter

  Dipl.-Phys. Peter Gerwinski, Essen, Germany, free physicist and programmer
peter.gerwinski@uni-essen.de - http://home.pages.de/~peter.gerwinski/ [970201]
 maintainer GNU Pascal [970401] - http://home.pages.de/~gnu-pascal/ [970125]

Peter Gerwinski (peter@agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de)