Re: Support for Meta-Programming

[Stewart Greenhill <greenhil@murdoch.edu.au>]

At 07:03 PM 10/12/98 -0500, Michael Griebling wrote:
>hartmut Goebel wrote:
>
>> Mike Griebling (grieblm@trt.allied.com) schrieb:
>>
>>  >It would be necessary to produce a debugger "Ref" file which contains
>>  >definitions of all the types and variables in a module.
>>
>> This is not a seperate file, but a date area within the object file.
>
>Well, AmigaOberon implemented this as separate files.  That way
>the object files don't get loaded down with excess baggage.

Another way to do it would be to write all of a module's definitions to the
symbol file, but  tag each item as exported or not exported. That way, the
compiler can tell which items may be imported, but a debugger can also
access non-exported items via Refs. Some meta-programming systems (eg.
Oberon/F, Blackbox) only allow access to exported items.

Of course, the advantage of separate files is that you can control whether
you allow others to access the private, non-exported information. It would
then be possible to distribute a symbol file (allowing use of exported
items) without distributing the Refs file.

-Stewart