Namespaces

Dividing your code

In some cases you want to use the same procedure name more than once in different places. For example most components like a button, panel or a label have an X and Y property with a setX and setY procedure to change the property value.

Without namespaces you would only be able to declare a single setX or setY procedure. However if you declare the procedure in a namespace you can use the procedure multiple times in different namespaces.

Within a namespace a procedure or record name still has to be unique.

Namespaces apply to procedures and records.

Declaring a namespace

A namespace is usually declared at the beginning of a file. In the following examples the same procedure setX is used in two different namespaces:

namespace components.button

proc setX(number windowHandle, number componentHandle, number x)
    addr windowHandle
    mod  MODULE_COMPONENT_BUTTON, BUTTON_COMPONENT_SET_X
end

namespace components.panel

proc setX(number windowHandle, number componentHandle, number x)
    addr windowHandle
    mod  MODULE_COMPONENT_PANEL, PANEL_COMPONENT_SET_X
end

Using a namespaced procedure

When calling a procedure declared in a namespace then the namespace should be used as a prefix.

proc main
    ; Call setX in the components.panel namespace:
    components.panel.setX(10)
    ; Call setX in the components.button namespace:
    components.button.setX(55)
end

Inside a namespace

When calling a procedure or using a record inside a namespace it's not necessary to use the namespace prefix.

namespace components.panel

proc setX(number windowHandle, number componentHandle, number x)
    addr windowHandle
    mod  MODULE_COMPONENT_PANEL, PANEL_COMPONENT_SET_X
end

proc setY(number windowHandle, number componentHandle, number y)
    addr windowHandle
    mod  MODULE_COMPONENT_PANEL, PANEL_COMPONENT_SET_Y
end

proc setPosition()
    ; The setX and setY procedures are declared in the same namespace as this setPosition
    ; procedure and don't need a namespace prefix to call them here...
    setX(10)
    setY(167)
end