Re: using `use' : what is the best practice ?

[Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com>]

On Jun 7, 10:32 am, milouz <a.micheli...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi guys,
> Sorry with my annoying questions, but it's not easy to program in Ada
> after 20 years programming in asm / C ;-)
>
> Maybe a not so anecdotic question : when using the 'use' clause ?
>
> My first thought is that using 'use' is not good because it masks the
> package tree.

While this is true it can be handy for reducing prefix-clutter,
as could a rename. So, while you may be hesitant to use them on the
package, I find using them in declare-blocks and subprograms to be
quite readable and usable.

With
Ada.Text_IO;

Package Body Example is
 [...]
 Procedure Something_Interesting is
   Use Ada.Text_IO; -- We're debugging here.
 begin
   [...]
  Put_Line( "Debugging marker." );
   [...]
 end Something_interesting;
End Example;

> For example, if I have 2 packages with procedures sharing the same
> name, example `P1.Foo' and `P2.Foo', my code won't be very readable if
> I only write the short name (`Foo') :
>
>    with P1; use P1;
>    with P2; use P2;
[...]
> As I'm very new, I'd like to have your opinion about the way to use
> 'use'.

Ah, I like to use the comma-separated forms of use/with; this can be
helpful if you wish to do a quick commenting out of a use or with to
pass to the compiler and see if you really need it at all.

EX:
With
Ada.Text_IO,
--Ada.Integer_IO, -- Am I even using Ada.Integer_IO?
--Ada.Tags,
--MY_PARSING_PACKAGE,
[...]
MY_CONSOLE_MANIPULATION_PACKAGE
;

Use
Ada.Text_IO,
--Ada.Tags,  -- Do I really need to USE tags?
MY_CONSOLE_MANIPULATION_PACKAGE;