[swift-evolution] Fixing modules that contain a type with the same name

[Xiaodi Wu]

I'm not sure that `_.` reads very well; it rather seems to denote that
there is no module name.

The most conservative change would be to prohibit module names that collide
with a contained (public) type. If, later, this is found to be unduly
restrictive, another syntax can be designed and added. I don't believe it
is a commonly seen design pattern, though, is it?

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 11:16 Félix Cloutier <swift-evolution at swift.org>
wrote:

> If no one has anything to say, I'll be starting a proposal to introduce
> the _.Module.Type syntax.
>
>
> Félix
>
> Le 17 juin 2016 à 19:52:45, Félix Cloutier via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> a écrit :
>
> Hello all,
>
> I recently ran into a bug <http://stackoverflow.com/q/37892621/251153> that
> leaves me unable to fully-qualify the name of a type. If you import a
> module named Foo that also contains a type named Foo, attempts to
> fully-qualify any name in the Foo module will instead attempt to find
> something inside the Foo type. This bug has already been reported
> <https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-898>.
>
> Here's an example with Károly Lőrentey's BTree module (which also contains
> a BTree type) that I encountered while trying to use the OrderedSet type:
>
> let set = OrderedSet<Int>()// error: 'OrderedSet' is ambiguous for type lookup in this context// Found this candidate: Foundation.OrderedSet:3:14// Found this candidate: BTree.OrderedSet:12:15
>
> To solve this, you would normally write BTree.OrderedSet, but now Swift
> thinks that BTree is the BTree type, not the BTree module:
>
> let set = BTree.OrderedSet<Int>()// error: reference to generic type 'BTree' requires arguments in <...>
>
> Any fix will require a change to the language, and as Jordan Rose stated
> on the bug, it "needs design", so I would like to bring up the issue and
> discuss possible solutions.
>
> I can see several options (leaving "do nothing" aside, since I believe
> that this needs to be resolved):
>
>
>    - Prevent modules from containing a type with the same name
>    - Allow modules to be imported under different names (`import BTree as
>    BTreeModule`, `import BTreeModule = BTree` or any similar syntax)
>    - Create a new syntax that indicates that you're naming a module, not
>    a type (like `_.BTree.OrderedSet`)
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Félix
>
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