slsh's require breaks jed-extra

[G. Milde]

On  7.06.07, John E. Davis wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Jun 2007 "G. Milde" said:

> >I would prefer an optional "namespace" argument over the need to fix
> >all these 23 modes with a "compatibility switch".

> It has been my experience, that "feature" is not actually used except
> as a filename.  In fact,

>    require (filename [,namespace]);

> should work.  

Learning that the `namespace' argument is optional, the number
broken modes comes down to 1 or 2. In the jedmodes-extra Debian package
the activation script /etc/jed.d/50jed-extra.sl needs fixing (see below).

> Earlier versions of the require function (e.g., the one distributed
> with 0.99-18) do not support namespaces.  In this sense, there is no
> backward compatibility.

My problem is not the missing "namespace" support, but the use cases with

   require(feature, filename)
   
where feature != filename.


> In what way are you using require?

Two use cases with <feature> != <path> are present in my local
extensions:


1. Requiring a feature from a file that is not on the jed library path:
   
   /usr/share/jed/jed-extra/libdir.sl
   
      %\example
      % The following lines in jed.rc
      %#v+
      %  require("libdir", "/FULL_PATH_TO/libdir.sl");
      %  add_libdir("usr/local/jed/lib/", 0));  % do not initialise
      %  add_libdir(path_concat(Jed_Home_Directory, "lib"));
      %#v-
      % will register the local and user-specific library-dir

   This is used in /etc/jed.d/50jed-extra.sl in the jed-extra Debian
   package.   
   
I suppose I can use 
   
      #ifnexists add_libdir
      () = evalfile("/FULL_PATH_TO/libdir.sl");
      #endif
  
here.

2. A file providing more than one feature:

   /usr/share/jed/jed-extra/drop-in/help.sl
   
      % This help browser (with "hyperlinks") is a drop-in replacement for the
      % standard help. Modes depending on extensions in this file should 
      %   require("hyperhelp", "help.sl").
      provide("help");
      provide("hyperhelp");

   This is used in two of my unpublished modes:
   
   /home/milde/.jed/lib/configure.sl:34:  require("hyperhelp", "help.sl");
   /home/milde/.jed/lib/testscript-wizard.sl:12:require("hyperhelp", "help.sl");

Will I need a S-Lang version test and switch or is there another option
to solve these cases?

Or would you recommend use a different name for a modified file (even if
it provides a superset of features)?

Günter