Record selectors

[Sean Hinde]

> well, what about packages? This is basically what they were 
> designed for!

Well, if I wanted to play the great directory hunt then I'd use Java!

Seriously there is a great deal of legacy code (perhaps every system written
since the invention of gen_server) which relies on this behaviour so I don't
think removing it is an option.

I also just thought for a few milliseconds more about my suggestion of using
xref, and realised that all knowledge of records is lost pretty early in
compilation. This information certainly does not make it into the abstract
code stored in beam chunks used by xref and not even through the "All source
code transformations" stage - compiler option 'E'.

So, it would seem that even to make a simple analysis tool would require the
compiler to hold onto the knowledge of record definitions a few more steps
into the process (before finally turning accesses into erlang:element/2
calls). Any comments from Compiler writers??

Sean



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