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  1. OMG Issue

UMLR — freeing namespace

  • Key: UMLR-16
  • Legacy Issue Number: 6624
  • Status: open  
  • Source: XTG, LLC ( Joaquin Miller)
  • Summary:

    I know ODP is <adjective>, so i'd like to add mention of a couple of other places where we will find name space standing on its own, and not conflated with package or other container.

    An IETF namespace is exactly "a set of terms usable as names."

    As Karl reminded me, a C++ name space is also "a set of terms usable as names," declared with the keyword 'namespace' and used with the keywords 'using namespace' (providing a naming context) or with the scope operator, '::' (converting a simple name to a name that is an identifier).

    [Unlike most Java tools, there is no requirement that the things in a C++ namespace all be in any particular container. Karl tells me that C++ programmers he works with don't like the way Java tools insist that a package-cum-namespace be identified with a directory that contains all elements of that package. (Of course, tools that do that are following "the extremely simple example" in The Java Language Specification. Sometimes the effect of simple examples on the future of the world.) It can be fine to have such simplifications in a programming language, but it's good to have more flexibility in models.]

    C++ also provides a form for aliases:
    namespace new_name = current_name ;

    Still more flexible is that other approach, which in addition to distinguishing name space from naming context, also allows the same item to have fully qualified names from different namespaces. If that's in MOF, let's use it. (Is that accomplished the relaxing, which MOF 2 package import provides? (If i import C from Pa into Pb, can i identify it with 'Pb::C'?))

    If not, let's put it there.

    Seems to me to be easy to accomplish, if Namespace is first class.

  • Reported: UML 2.5 — Mon, 17 Nov 2003 05:00 GMT
  • Updated: Fri, 6 Mar 2015 20:57 GMT