Empty package visibility underspecified or just confusing

[som-snytt]

minimized code

// ok in one compilation unit
def f = "hello, world"

package p {
  @main def m = println(f)
}

// fonly.scala
def f = "hello, world"

// ponly.scala
package p {
  @main def m = println(f)
}

Compiled together or separately:

➜  dotc ponly.scala fonly.scala
-- [E006] Unbound Identifier Error: ponly.scala:5:24 ---------------------------
5 |  @main def m = println(f)
  |                        ^
  |                        Not found: f

longer explanation available when compiling with `-explain`
1 error found

expectation

Binding of f shouldn't depend on compilation unit, but moreover, members of the empty package should be visible only to members of the empty package; or specify that they are visible in the current compilation unit.

Other restrictions may apply. Cf #7650

Related confusion in Scala 2: scala/bug#10927

[odersky]

I vote for:

or specify that they are visible in the current compilation unit.

[dwijnand]

I vote for:

or specify that they are visible in the current compilation unit.

Are there many things in the language where the current compilation unit matters (outside of the obvious sealed)?

We've had this discussion before (and I can't remember about what exactly) but, personally, while I can appreciate that it would be a bit of a stutter step if as soon as you introduced package p in the file f is strangely not visible, I still think that's better than having to bear in mind if things are within the same file or not.

That's why I ask: should I just come to terms with the fact that this detail matters?

[dwijnand]

We've had this discussion before (and I can't remember about what exactly)

(Found it, it was to do with imports: scala/bug#11593)

[som-snytt]

@dwijnand There's an old scala2 ticket where paulp was pulling his hair out about this stuff. (Number 9552.) Tooling can assist, but ultimately, the answer to "I can't reason about this" is "Don't write code that way." Prefer FP to OOP, composition to inheritance, etc.

The empty package and top-level defs is worth attention because, as a newbie, I'm likely to be trying out code that is the opposite of best practice.

Another recent idea, which I haven't promoted, is to enable denotating a directory of files as a single compilation unit, scalac mydir. They would be compiled as sibling contexts so that naming works right. My only idea for how to indicate that was to name the dir mydir.scala.

[dwijnand]

I consider defining multiple packages within a file to be quite an advanced feature, don't you? As such, I don't think the newbie excuse holds.

[som-snytt]

Here, it told me to add the braces, and then I added the f after new. It didn't tell me not to use new.

I could have switched the order of the main and package.

Obviously, this test throws.

@main def test() = println(new f.C().c)

package f {

class C {
  val s = "hello"
  def c: String = f"$s%-s"
}

}

[dwijnand]

As a beginner why did you introduce a package block?

[som-snytt]

As a non-beginner but as a Scala 2 refugee, I tried:

@main def test() = ???
package f
class C

whereas I might have done better with

@main def test() = println(f.C().c)

val s = "hi"

package f
  class C
    def c = f"$s"

I usually put experimental classes in packages so they wind up in subdirs of my snippets dir.