Include - A lightweight dynamic tab and project loader

Code Sharing
1

Following on a little bit from experimenting with reflecting class names I’ve been playing around on and off with a function which will import a tab from another Codea project without using a dependency or requiring code to be commented out.

I was inspired after stumbling across setfenv() in the lua spec and having a look through cmodule by @toadkick
which is a very capable and elegantly written dynamic loader :slight_smile:

Include is a bit smaller and has a narrower scope. It is just 102 lines and exposes only four main global functions include,xinclude, import and ximport all of which will load global objects / classes from a list of project tabs, projects or any combination thereof into an isolated environment where each tab is cached and then its members exported to a table for use with a local or directly to the _G table. Each function has a significant but subtle difference between its counterparts.

include - loads the requested projects / tabs into isolated environment and then returns exports in two return values a unified shallow copy table of all items from the list of includes/imports and a name-spaced shallow copy table by project name for all includes/imports.

local all,ns = include("ProjectName","OtherProjectName:TabName")

local c = all.ClassName()

local nc = ns.ProjectName.ClassName()

Note: the unified table will replace two globals named identically on a last write wins basis even if they are in separate projects. The name-spaced table will not because everything is arranged into ProjectName.classname accessors.

xinclude - returns the name-spaced table of requested project tabs from include.

local ns = xinclude("ProjectName","OtherProjectName:TabName")

local p = ns.ProjectName.ClassName()

local o = ns.OtherProjectName.ClassName()

import - imports the unified table of objects from include into the _G table

import("ProjectName","OtherProjectName:TabName")

local cg = ClassName()

ximport - imports the namespace table of objects from include into the _G table

ximport("ProjectName","OtherProjectName:TabName")

local pcg = ProjectName.ClassName()
local ocg = OtherProjectName.ClassName()

Source Code: https://gist.github.com/XanDDemoX/5989154

Edit: Updated v1.01: Fixed typo in ximport function.

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Very cool! Thanks, This will come in handy.

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I keep getting include() and import() nil errors. Library is linked

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Sorry, stupid mistake. Had all the code in the main tab and nothing is the imported tab.

I’m really liking this. So what would be the best way to include/import 2 tabs from a project that has 4 tabs?

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Do you know of toadkick’s cmodule code? It might be worth your looking at. (I think there are links on the wiki.)

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I do @Andrew_Stacey its very impressive and was part of my inspiration for this :slight_smile: but this does things a little differently :wink:

Thanks @Briarfox :slight_smile: To include two tabs from a project simply do :

-- access classes etc from a local

local tabs  = include("ProjectName:Tab1","ProjectName:Tab2")

-- or for global access import into _G 

import("ProjectName:Tab1","ProjectName:Tab2")