Qualified names

Every dependency in Mica enters through the imp section — that has been true since the first unit. 7.0.0 adds a second granularity to it: qualification, the dotted name that states a word’s origin at its use.

The example is examples/Qualification. Build and run it:

make -C examples/Qualification run

Two granularities

imp
    WriteLn : std;
    Clamp, Pi : math;
imp cstd;

The grouped import imp Clamp, Pi : math does what it always did — the names arrive unqualified — and now also makes math addressable, so math.Pi is equally sayable when a reader wants the origin visible.

The bare import imp cstd; puts no name in scope: a bare Sqrt stays identifier not found, but every exported member answers to the dot — one grain that gives the whole namespace to the dot and nothing to the bare word, made for math-heavy code:

x := cstd.Sqrt(2.0);
WriteLn("  cstd.Pow(2.0, 10.0) = %lf", cstd.Pow(2.0, 10.0));

The transcendentals read as what they are — C’s, by name — while Mica’s own verbs stay bare words. One meaning per word, and the call site states the split of labor instead of hiding it.

One mechanism underneath

Resolution stays declaration-first: a declared name wins the bare word, and a qualified name is an import in disguise — the dot rides the same one lookup mechanism every other name rides, materialized as an alias view under a dotted key. No second resolver, no search path, no surprises.

std, cstd and math are reserved words, so the three core qualifiers can never be shadowed. A vocabulary unit’s name stays a claimable word — a local simply shadows the dot road, by the ordinary scope rules.

The template boundary

A generic template never qualifies: a template is grafted under its own name — its body may reference that name — so math.Clamp is refused with the remedy spelled out:

5438: generic template 'Clamp' cannot be used through qualification: a template
is grafted under its own name, so import it by name — 'imp Clamp : math' —
and use it unqualified

Concrete functions, constants and types qualify; templates come in by name. The example’s dots stand on math.Pi and cstd’s concrete surface for exactly this reason.

What the compiler refused

What this does not do

• No wildcard dots, no search order. A dot names one namespace; two namespaces exporting one word never race, because the dot said which.
• No renaming through the dot. A site-local rename is the import alias imp Say = WriteLn : std — the dot always speaks the exported name.
• No qualification of keywords or locals. The dot is for imported namespaces; everything else is the scope chain you already know.

Try it

Remove imp cstd; and watch every cstd. use answer 5436 with the remedy in the message. Then add a local variable named cstd and watch the scope rules — not a special case — decide.

Next

The naming doctrine this page lives under — what may abbreviate, what is frozen, and why WriteLn stays — is the 7.0.0 release story, told in the release notes.