Child modules draft feedback wanted

[Ulf Wiger (AL/EAB)]

Romain Lenglet wrote:
> 
> Why not have a specific construct or convention to get record 
> information at a module level (not at a source code level, 
> like -record). For instance, for behaviour, the functions to 
> implement are specified in the behaviour module as a function: 
> behaviour_info/1. What not have a similar record_info/1 
> function??? That function would return the list of field 
> names (as atoms) for the record name given as an atom as an argument.
> 
> E.g.:
> 
> -module(record_spec).
> -export([record_info/1]).
> record_info(record1) ->
>     [field1, field2];
> record_info(record2) ->
>     [field1, field2, field3].
> 

This was basically proposed by Mats Cronqvist not long ago:

http://www.erlang.org/ml-archive/erlang-questions/200509/msg00260.html

Since it is not allowed today to define a function
record_info/1 in a module, it would be very easy to have the
compiler generate and export such a function, rather than 
providing it only as a pseudo-function.


> And in using modules, we could use a modified -record construct:
> -record(Module, RecordName).
> It would be like an "import of record definition". E.g.:
> -record(record_spec, record1).

I would prefer -use_record or -import_record, to avoid
overloading.

/Ulf W