module vs import

[Jarrett Billingsley]

"Tomasz Sowiñski" <tomeksowi at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g2h5f2$1jnq$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Robert Fraser Wrote:
>
>> The "module" keyword is used to assign a name to your module (which
>> incidentally must coincide with its filename & folder structure) while
>> "import" gives you access to the module with the given name.
>
> By the way, why do you have to repeat the filename in the file itself? I'm 
> sure there must be some reason, but I can't see it now.
>
> Tomek

I think it might have to do with making it possible to make D work on 
filesystems where there is no concept of "directories", such as a 
database-oriented FS.  In such a filesystem, there might not be any way to 
identify a module other than by doing so inside the module.  `select 
contains(*, "module foo.bar;") from files where extension = "d"`.  Though 
even that wouldn't necessarily work since you'd really have to parse the 
module since it could be written "module                    foo .     bar 
;".

But in that case, why is the module declaration optional?

It's kind of confusing and to be honest, I'm not sure what purpose the 
module declaration holds.  It would be far more efficient in a DB-oriented 
FS to instead follow some naming convention for modules, allowing you to 
select them without looking at their contents.

...now I want to remove module declarations from MiniD :)