<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">On Apr 3, 2017, at 1:34 PM, Douglas Gregor via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:<br class=""></blockquote><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">Hello Swift Community,</span><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">In rejecting <a href="https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0159-fix-private-access-levels.md" class="">SE-0159</a>, the core team described a potential direction we would like to investigate for “private” access control that admits a limited form of type-based access control within files. The core team is seeking some discussion here and a motivated volunteer to put together a proposal along these lines for review in the Swift 4 time-frame (i.e., very soon). To be clear, the core team it’s sure this is the right direction to go… but it appears promising and we would *love* to be able to settle the access-control issue.</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">The design, specifically, is that a “private” member declared within a type “X” or an extension thereof would be accessible from:</div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>* An extension of “X” in the same file</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>* The definition of “X”, if it occurs in the same file</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>* A nested type (or extension thereof) of one of the above that occurs in the same file</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This design has a number of apparent benefits:</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>+ “private” becomes the right default for “less than whole module” visibility, and aligns well with Swift coding style that divides a type’s definition into a number of extensions.</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>+ “fileprivate” remains for existing use cases, but now it’s use it more rare, which has several advantages:</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>+ It fits well with the "progressive disclosure” philosophy behind Swift: you can use public/internal/private for a while before encountering and having to learn about “fileprivate” (note: we thought this was going to be true of <a href="https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0025-scoped-access-level.md" class="">SE-0025</a>, but we were clearly wrong)</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>+ When “fileprivate” occurs, it means there’s some interesting coupling between different types in the same file. That makes fileprivate a useful alert to the reader rather than, potentially, something that we routinely use and overlook so that we can separate implementations into extensions.</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>+ “private” is more closely aligned with other programming languages that use type-based access control, which can help programmers just coming to Swift. When they reach for “private”, they’re likely to get something similar to what they expect—with a little Swift twist due to Swift’s heavy use of extensions.</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>+ Loosening the access restrictions on “private” is unlikely to break existing code.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">There are likely some drawbacks:</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Developers using patterns that depend on the existing lexically-scoped access control of “private” may find this new interpretation of “private” to be insufficiently strict</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Swift’s access control would go from “entirely lexical” to “partly lexical and partly type-based”, which can be viewed as being more complicated</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class="" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Thoughts? Volunteer?</div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">This appears similar to an idea I brought up during the SE-0159 discussion:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><a href="https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20170320/034156.html" class="">https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20170320/034156.html</a></div><div class=""><a href="https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20170320/034162.html" class="">https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/Week-of-Mon-20170320/034162.html</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I feel that, while imperfect, the idea would provide a compromise between those of us who prefer to have a scoped access level, and those who feel encumbered by ‘private’ not applying to in-file extensions. Therefore, I’d be generally +1 on it.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Charles</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>