BrinyCode

I've been hearing a lot about "Namespaces" here and online tutors so what exactly are they for & why? They sound kind of abstract. What's the best way to visualize them for?

Ghost

Think of a Namespace as a name for that file for the code to reffer itself to with out using file names. Best Answer I have for you, sorry.

Klarre

If you are working with two (or more) external libraries, and they both have a class named for example Vector3, and you want to create a Vector3 object. Which constructor do your object use then? A conflict will appear.
The solution to this is to use namespaces, so the consturctors got different names, and wont collide.

DaWei

A nice, previous treatement on the forum can be found here .

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lectricpharaoh

The simple answer is that a namespace is a context in which symbols (names of variables, functions, classes, etc) reside. It is similar to how you might refer to your house as 'home', and I refer to mine as 'home'. Yet when you say 'home', I don't think you're talking about my house, and vice versa. In C++ syntax, we would refer to those symbols as BrinyCode::home and lectricpharaoh::home. The full name allows us to avoid the ambiguity that would otherwise occur. C++ namespaces are a mechanism for resolving such ambiguities in code. Other languages have their own mechanism, such as packages in Java, that perform pretty much the same job. Some languages, like C, don't have any such mechanism, which means you're more likely to run into naming conflicts.

For a more comprehensive discussion, see the link that DaWei posted.

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Ghost

They beat my answer to $#%....much better job explain guys, good work =)

bl00dninja

very informative indeed.

p.s. @ ghost, animated avatars are not allowed. even though they're cool.

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Ghost

are they really not allowed? that is weird and kind of sad, whats the reasoning?

DaWei

It's simple, really, Ghost. Some animated avatars may be overly distracting. Others could conceivably trigger epileptic reactions. It's best not to ask the moderators to decide where to draw those lines. It's easier to just draw the line at "none". Shoot, I had one, myself. I'm doing okay without it.

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Contributor's Corner: Grumpy on C++ Exceptions DaWei on Pointers

D-Ferg27

whoa i didn't even notice his thing was animated.

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