I think his summary in #11031 is accurate, and the reason given directly in the reply is the reason for using/importall to be different. Issue #8000 is a discussion of ways to change/simplify the syntax.
I'll take a stab at rephrasing the different in case that helps. There is only one difference, and on the surface (syntax-wise) it may seem very minor. The difference between "using" and "importall" is that with "using" you need to say "function Foo.bar(.." to extend module Foo's function bar with a new method, but with "importall" or "import Foo.bar", you only need to say "function bar(..." and it automatically extends module Foo's function bar. If you use "importall", then "function Foo.bar(..." and "function bar(..." become equivalent. If you use "using", then they are different. The reason this is important enough to have been given separate syntax is that you don't want to accidentally extend a function that you didn't know existed, because that could easily cause a bug. This is most likely to happen with a method that takes a common type like string or int, because both you and the other module could define a method to handle such a common type. If you use importall, then you'll replace the other module's implementation of "bar(s::String)" with your new implementation, which could easily do something complete different (and break all/many future usages of the other functions in module Foo that depend on calling bar). Does this make more sense to you? (And is it an answer to the question you were asking, or did I misunderstand?) Best, Leah On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 9:05 AM, andrew cooke <[email protected]> wrote: > > i'm trying to understand the difference between "using" and "importall". > i have the same confusion described at > https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11031 but, unlike the OP there, > reading https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/8000 had not clarified > things for me. > > thanks, > andrew > >
