OK I'd like to try doing this. I wonder if I should make a static
class named 'global', as opposed to just an Object bound to a global
var. That way the compiler could declare all the id's that are known
at compile time as 'fixtures', and presumably new
properties could be added at runtime when needed.
On Sat, Feb 9, 2008 at 1:07 PM, P T Withington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I only suggest the conditional wrapping for performance reasons...
> 'with' does not come for free. And the compiler is already doing the
> necessary analysis.
>
>
>
> On Feb 9, 2008, at 10:15, Donald Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Why not wrap every function's contents with 'with (global)' ?
> >
> > And can user code do this with top level vars?
> >
> > var blah = globalvar;
> >
> > That would need to be fully qualified (either by smart compiler or
> > user).
> >
> > On Feb 9, 2008, at 7:32 AM, P T Withington wrote:
> >
> >> This is probably the right time to bite the bullet and stop using
> >> the global namespace. It has already cause problems with name
> >> collisions. Per my comment, "global" should probably only mean "in
> >> this canvas's scope". So, yes create an object that holds these
> >> global names. Heck, you could even call it `global`... :)
> >>
> >> Our compiler already analyzes each method to determine if there are
> >> free references in the method. We could use this analysis to
> >> insert a `with (global)` block around any such code, so that no
> >> user code would have to change.
> >>
> >> On 2008-02-08, at 23:31 EST, Henry Minsky wrote:
> >>
> >>> In DHTML and AS2, we get away with doing this for setting node
> >>> id's to
> >>> be global vars:
> >>>
> >>> function setID ( id ){
> >>> //support for current system
> >>> if ((typeof(id) == 'string') && id.length) {
> >>> if ($debug) {
> >>> if (global[id] && global[id] !== this) {
> >>> Debug.warn('Redefining #%s from %w to %w',
> >>> id, global[id], this);
> >>> }
> >>> }
> >>> this.id = id;
> >>> // TODO: [2006-03-22 ptw] Should id's really go in the
> >>> user/canvas module?
> >>> global[ id ] = this;
> >>> } else {
> >>> if ($debug) {
> >>> // id is permitted to be null or undefined, meaning
> >>> // "don't id me"
> >>> if (id) {
> >>> Debug.error('Invalid id %w for %w', id, this);
> >>> }
> >>> }
> >>> }
> >>> //namespace system
> >>> //app[ id ] = this;
> >>> //local reference
> >>>
> >>> }
> >>>
> >>> This works because we aliased "global" to _root in AS2, and to
> >>> "window" in DHTML.
> >>>
> >>> I don't see any way to do this in AS3. There doesn't seem to be any
> >>> magic object whose properties
> >>> become global vars. I'm not even sure how to get the runtime to set
> >>> global id variables by name procedurally during
> >>> instantiation even if we declare them. I hacked the tag compiler to
> >>> emit a list of top level var declarations for all id's, but
> >>> I don't see how to emit the code for the instantiator to bind to
> >>> them
> >>> when the nodes are created, because what can you put on the
> >>> left side of the assignment?
> >>>
> >>> One solution would be to make an API change, and require all
> >>> globally
> >>> named nodes to be referenced via some object
> >>> like "lz", which we already are kind of pushing for class names.
> >>> Tons
> >>> of user code would have to be updated.
> >>>
> >>> To add one more twist of the knife, for the debugger eval mechanism,
> >>> if we want to use globals, we need to have a list of them
> >>> someplace to compile in to the little debugger stub template app,
> >>> because that code is compiled independent of the application code.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Henry Minsky
> >>> Software Architect
> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Don Anderson
> > Java/C/C++, Berkeley DB, systems consultant
> >
> > voice: 617-547-7881
> > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > www: http://www.ddanderson.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
--
Henry Minsky
Software Architect
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
