Re: Package dependencies
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg45753] Re: [mg45688] Package dependencies
- From: Omega Consulting <info at omegaconsultinggroup.com>
- Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 03:15:40 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
On a modern computer, package loading is quick. Unless the package is very large (or part of a large set of interdependent packages), DeclarePackage is not really necessary. Just use Get or Needs in c.m. However, if you must load the packages when f is first used, you can create a "stub" function. Something like: BeginPackage["a`"] f := ( Clear[f]; Get["a`"]; Needs["b`"]; f ) EndPackage[] In[1]:= << c` In[2]:= ?f a`f f := (Clear[f]; << a`; Needs[b`]; f) So f is defined to load a` and b`, which re-defines f. In[3]:= f[1] Out[3]= 1 In[4]:= ?f a`f f[0] = 0 f[1] = 1 At 04:07 AM 1/20/2004, Maxim wrote: >Suppose we have a package a.m defining function f: > >BeginPackage["a`"] >f[0] = 0 >EndPackage[] > >Then we create package b.m which introduces additional definitions for >f: > >BeginPackage["b`","a`"] >f[1] = f[0] + 1 >EndPackage[] > >Now after loading b.m we'll have f[0]=0 and f[1]=1. Finally, we want to >create a package c.m that determines when b.m should be autoloaded. We >add the following line to c.m: > >DeclarePackage["b`","f"] > >Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way: > >In[1]:= ><<c` >f[1] > >Out[2]= >1+f[0] > >(standalone kernel will also give f::shdw warning). The reason is that >DeclarePackage creates symbol f (with attribute Stub) in the b` context. >This implementation decision seems rather questionable: the idea of >DeclarePackage is to load b.m when f is first used, which is exactly >what we want here -- but nobody said the symbol f was needed in context >b`! > >Probably this difficulty can be avoided by some creative usage of Remove >and $NewSymbol, but simply adding Remove["b`f"] to b.m won't solve the >problem completely. > >This is exactly the situation with Geometry\Polytopes.m, >Graphics\Polyhedra.m and Graphics\Kernel\init.m -- you can use ><<graphics` to declare most of the symbols in all the Graphics\* >packages, but not Tetrahedron, Cube and others because there are >definitions for them both in Polytopes.m and Polyhedra.m. > >Maxim Rytin >m.r at prontomail.com -------------------------------------------------------------- Omega Consulting "The final answer to your Mathematica needs" http://omegaconsultinggroup.com