Re: [ooc-compiler] Filename Extension

[August K. <fus...@co...>]

Stewart Greenhill wrote:
> Section 15 of Wirth's Modula-2 definition (1980) describes the 
> implementation of the Modula compiler for the PDP-11 computer. It 
> recommends that ".MOD" be used for "program modules", ".DEF" for 
> "definition modules", and ".SYM" for symbol files. All of the 
> descendants of Modula seem to have adopted these same conventions.

Well, for MODula (implementation) files ".MOD" is of course the natural 
choice. It was probably kept for Oberon files as they too contain MODules.

By the way, I tried to use oo2c with the ".obn" extension and... it 
works. When I first tried that I forgot to recompile all imported 
modules, so I falsely concluded that it wasn't possible. Sorry. On the 
other hand, in oowhereis I noticed the the constant declaration

    moduleExtension = ".Mod";

> Its true that there are other uses for the ".MOD" extension, but I think 
> you'll find that Wirth's use (>25 years) probably pre-dates most of the 
> alternatives.

Sure, but why not avoid potential problems and use ".obn" instead? 
However, since (at least) oo2c seems to support arbitrary file 
extensions, everyone is free to choose their own preferred extension.


August