Removal of autoloads via module name only

Removal of autoloads via module name only

[Peter Stephenson]

zmodload allows you to say "zmodload -ab foo" which will mark buitin
"foo" to be autoloaded from module "foo".  This has been useless for
zsh's own modules since we put them in the namespace zsh/...; none of
the four autoloadable features allow slashes and we don't do any
automatic mangling on module or feature names (nor do I think we
should).  As far as I can see, therefore, this ability is just a
historical confusion.  The only possible exception would be if someone
has their own module which doesn't use a namespace (which violates our
guidelines anyway).

Is anyone going to be concerned if I remove this ability, so that
you would need to give both the module and the builtin etc. to be
autoloaded explicitly?  I stronly suspect the answer is "no", in which
case I will remove it in the next round of feature autoloading changes.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <p.w.stephenson@ntlworld.com>
Web page now at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/p.w.stephenson/

Re: Removal of autoloads via module name only

[Peter Stephenson]

Peter Stephenson wrote:
> zmodload allows you to say "zmodload -ab foo" which will mark buitin
> "foo" to be autoloaded from module "foo".  This has been useless for
> zsh's own modules since we put them in the namespace zsh/...; none of
> the four autoloadable features allow slashes and we don't do any
> automatic mangling on module or feature names (nor do I think we
> should).

This isn't quite true, as I just discovered from a test in V01zmodload.ztst:

alias -A example=zsh/example
zmodload -ab example

used to work.  But I'm prepared to gloss over that if you are.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <p.w.stephenson@ntlworld.com>
Web page now at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/p.w.stephenson/

Re: Removal of autoloads via module name only

[Bart Schaefer]

On Jun 25,  9:18pm, Peter Stephenson wrote:
}
} Is anyone going to be concerned if I remove this ability, so that
} you would need to give both the module and the builtin etc. to be
} autoloaded explicitly? I stronly suspect the answer is "no", in
} which case I will remove it in the next round of feature autoloading
} changes.

Actually, use this all the time.  Or more precisely, I use the thing
you mentioned in your next email, all the time:

} alias -A example=zsh/example
} zmodload -ab example

I have a rather complicated set of startup scripts, one of which has
the job of discovering that I'm running an uninstalled zsh binary out
of the compilation build tree and therefore frobbing the module path
(and installing all sorts of module aliases) so that everything "just
works" loading the modules out of Src/Builtins and Src/Modules instead
of by using their regular namespace paths.

This makes extensive use of exactly the aliasing trick above, and I'd be
rather disappointed to have to try to figure out how to rewrite it all
so that it still works.

Re: Removal of autoloads via module name only

[Peter Stephenson]

Bart Schaefer wrote:
> This makes extensive use of exactly the aliasing trick above, and I'd be
> rather disappointed to have to try to figure out how to rewrite it all
> so that it still works.

OK, it's easy to keep; I probably wouldn't have thought of it if I'd
spotted the business with aliases earlier.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@csr.com>                  Software Engineer
CSR PLC, Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cowley Road
Cambridge, CB4 0WZ, UK                          Tel: +44 (0)1223 692070


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