Importing Cobra Files

[Imagine3163]

Right now I am calling

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p = ParseSymbol("foo")

which will create a new ParseSymbol object. When the two cobra files (the one using the statement above and the other "ParseSymbol.cobra") are in the same directory, how can I use some kind of "Include" statement that will tell my current cobra file where to find this "ParseSymbol" object ? Is this possible or do I have to included everything into one .cobra file.

[Charles]

Just give both files to the Cobra compiler like so:

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> cobra -c Foo.cobra Bar.cobra
> Foo

# or run in one shot:
> cobra Foo.cobra Bar.cobra

[mindstormss]

I know that I just asked this too, but perhaps there should be a way to "include" files, in that if I have a file/library that requires other files, I should not have to include every single file from the main file. Having seperate parts have multiple files and then have every single file included on only one file is kind of annoying.

[Charles]

Perhaps you can address this by having a .bat file (or shell script) that contains your compilation line. Cobra itself has a comp.bat that reads:

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Snapshot\cobra.exe -compile -color -debug -ert:yes -timeit %* -files:files-to-compile.text

Which also points out that you can use the -files: option to store your file list off the command line.

Another option is to use something like MSBuild or nant. Although there are no custom Cobra commands for them, I have used nant in the past by just invoking Cobra as an external command.

mindstorms, I'm not clear what you mean by "I should not have to include every single file from the main file". Currently there is no way to include any files from the main .cobra file.

Would it be helpful if Cobra took wild cards like "cobra *.cobra"?

Do you want to post some example command lines and/or source code of what you would like?

[Charles]

On a related note, I've been planning to add an "import" directive in Cobra that would import the "use" and "namespace" directives from another source file. This comes in handy when building related files like a class hierarchy, or a UI.

# Shape.cobra
use Foo.LibA
use Foo.LibB

namespace Shapes

    class Shape
        is abstract

        def init
            pass

# Circle.cobra
import Shape

class Circle
    inherits Shape

    pass

The Circle class would also be in the "Shapes" namespace and would also have access to the namespaces Foo.LibA and Foo.LibB.

But even with this feature, you would still need to say "cobra -c Shape.cobra Circle.cobra"

I suppose we could try to "chain the imports" so that if you have "import Circle" in a MyProgram.cobra then running MyProgram would import Circle and Shape. But this would seem to break down if the Shape class references another class that it doesn't import...