Namespaces in BHL

Namespaces in BHL provide a way to organize code and avoid naming conflicts. They help create hierarchical structures for your code organization.

Declaring Namespaces

Basic Namespace Declaration

namespace Game.Utils {
    // Code inside namespace
}

Nested Namespaces

You can declare nested namespaces in two ways:

// Using dot notation
namespace Game.Utils.Math {
    func float Add(float a, float b) {
        return a + b
    }
}

// Using nested blocks
namespace Game {
    namespace Utils {
        namespace Math {
            func float Multiply(float a, float b) {
                return a * b
            }
        }
    }
}

Using Namespaces

Accessing Namespace Members

// Full qualification
Game.Utils.Math.Add(1.0, 2.0)

// Using namespace members after import
import "math_utils"
Math.Add(1.0, 2.0)

Multiple Declarations

You can split namespace declarations across multiple files:

// file1.bhl
namespace Game.Utils {
    func int Add(int a, int b) {
        return a + b
    }
}

// file2.bhl
namespace Game.Utils {
    func int Multiply(int a, int b) {
        return a * b
    }
}

Classes in Namespaces

Class Definition

namespace Game.Entities {
    class Player {
        string name
        int health
        
        func void TakeDamage(int amount) {
            health -= amount
        }
    }
}

Using Namespaced Classes

func test() {
    Game.Entities.Player player = new Game.Entities.Player
    player.name = "Hero"
    player.health = 100
}

Importing Namespaces

Basic Import

// Import a module containing namespaces
import "game_utils"

// Now you can use the imported namespaces
func test() {
    Utils.Math.Add(1, 2)
}

Import Rules

1. Imports must be at the file level
2. Imported symbols are available throughout the file
3. In case of naming conflicts, fully qualified names must be used

Naming conflicts

When the same name exists in multiple namespaces, use the fully qualified name to disambiguate:

namespace Game {
    class Entity {}
}

namespace Game.Sub {
    class Entity {}  // different from Game.Entity

    func void test() {
        Entity e        = new Entity      // Game.Sub.Entity
        Game.Entity ge  = new Game.Entity // Game.Entity
    }
}