Re: Idea for a new kind of require

[Rena <hyperhacker@...>]

On Aug 24, 2012 10:15 AM, "Duncan Cross" <duncan.cross@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Rob Hoelz <rob@hoelz.ro> wrote:
> >> So how does this work, given that normally the module table is stored
> >> and returned each time that require() is called -- does the loader now
> >> get re-run each time instead, or are arguments ignored after the first
> >> time, or what?
> > Excellent question!  I think that the extra arguments feature would
> > mainly be used as a configuration mechanism, and authors of modules
> > utilizing the feature would have to do so
> > under the understanding that the chunk is only evaluated once.
>
> One convention I've seen used is to provide an "init" function that
> does necessary setup then returns the module itself, like this:
>
>   local mymodule = require 'mymodule'.init { fancy_mode = true, timeout = 5000 }
>
> It's then the module's responsibility to handle re-initialization in
> whatever way is appropriate. Maybe integrating with this convention
> somehow would be something to consider.
>
> -Duncan
>

I really like how you can do "require 'foo'" or "require:xyz 'foo'". I may have to steal that idea.