[m-dev.] for review: add mdb support for interactive queries

[Peter Schachte]

On Thu, Mar 04, 1999 at 12:02:58PM +1100, Fergus Henderson wrote:
> > Also, for white box testing it would be very useful to be able to
> > somehow call non-exported predicates.
> 
> This is probably not too hard to implement -- much of the work has already
> been done for nested modules.

Cool.

> If you want your query to use symbols
> in the implementation of module `foo', then the system should compile
> it to a nested module `foo.query.m'.  Currently the compiler *doesn't*
> check that foo.query.m is really declared to be a submodule of `foo',
> so the following patch is the only change currently required to the
> compiler.

Cooler still.  It's not clear to me, though, if this patch documents
this facility well enough to stop someone (maybe you?) later putting
in the check for the submodule declaration, breaking this feature.  Is
there some other place this should be documented?

> There needs to be some way of saying which module you want to
> nest the query in.  Any suggestions on the user interface?

Isn't it enough just to allow module-qualified goals?

-- 
Peter Schachte                     ... law reflects the interests and
mailto:schachte at cs.mu.OZ.AU        ideology of those who frame it.
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~schachte/      -- Robert Hughes, The Fatal Shore 
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