proposal: allow 'with(Foo):' in addition to 'with(Foo){..}'

[Era Scarecrow via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 10 August 2014 at 20:12:56 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 8/10/2014 11:34 AM, Era Scarecrow wrote:
>>  5. Access permissions (public/private/protected).
>>  6. File length attributes (@safe: @system: @trusted:)
>
> Again, that is for declarations, not statements.

  Does with have to be only for statements?

  Real example. In my code somewhere i have a large list of enum 
types that specify a type of formatting and visibility options.

enum FlagStates {
   def        = 0x0,    //Default Value.
   changed    = 1,      ///Has changed (From original state)
   readOnly   = 1 << 1, ///This field/subrecord/record is readonly
   isOriginal = 1 << 2, ///when loaded except when marked 
deleted/invisible
   invisible  = 1 << 3, ///
   deleted    = 1 << 4, ///
   //29 out of 32 flags are defined
  }

  next i'll have a struct that holds this as part of it's 
declaration...

///Details for specific parts/fields
struct NotePart {
   ValueType type;  ///type of value (string, etc. See flags.d)
   string id;       ///specific output/identifier to print (If any)
   int _size;
   Flags flags;     ///default flags used. Relies on FlagStates
   //etc...
}

alias immutable(char)[4] NString;
struct SubRecordParts {
   NString name; ///specific subrecord
   NString requ;	///must be within record (or base subrecord)
   int size;	///how big (Helps identify, TES3 header is 300 for 
example.
   NotePart[] notes; ///Specify all the individual fields
  //etc
}

  Now since i can't use with(): I'm forced to do aliases, and a 
lot of them...

private alias NotePart NP;
private alias ValueType VT;
private alias FlagStates.noPrint noPrint;
private alias FlagStates.noChange noChange;
private alias FlagStates.hashPrint hashPrint;
private alias FlagStates.noPrintClashes noPrintClashes;
private alias FlagStates.noPrintNull noPrintNull;

//there's at least like 200 entries in here.
immutable SubRecordParts subParts[] = [
   {"DATA", "INFO", 12, [
     {VT.raw,  "Unknown", 4, Flags(noPrint, noChange)},
     {VT.i_32, "Disposition"},
     {VT.i_8,  "Rank"},
     {VT.ranged_8, "Gender"},
     {VT.i_8,  "PCRank"},
     {VT.raw,  "Unknown", 1, Flags(noPrint, noChange)}]},
   {"VHGT", "LAND", 4232, [
     {VT.float_32, "Base Height"},
     {VT.raw, "Height Data", 4228, Flags(noChange, noPrintClashes, 
hashPrint)}]},
   //etc etc. This is a more verbose section than most of the 
rest. Most include the noPrintNull flag
];



  Had i been able to use with() i could have avoided the aliases 
above and probably just done a single line before using it 
heavily.

   with(FlagStates, ValueType):

  There wouldn't have been clashing because they each hold 
different types of data, and it's all immutable static values 
anyways.