#987 – The using Directive Can Create an Alias for a Type

December 3, 2013 1 Comment

You can use the using directive to create an alias for a namespace, which you can then use to access the types in that namespace.  For example:

using U1 = DogLibrary.Utility.StandardLogging;
using U2 = DogLibrary.Utility.AlternateLogging;

We might do the above if we had an identically named type in each of the two namespaces so that we could then prefix the type with the appropriate namespace.

U1.DogLogger log1 = new U1.DogLogger(@"C:\log1.txt");
U2.DogLogger log2 = new U2.DogLogger(@"C:\log2.txt");

We can also use the using directive to create an alias for a specific type.  For the example above, we could do the following:

using Logger1 = DogLibrary.Utility.StandardLogging.DogLogger;
using Logger2 = DogLibrary.Utility.AlternateLogging.DogLogger;

We could then use the alias directly as a type name:

            // Short for DogLibrary.Utility.StandardLogging.DogLogger
            Logger1 log1 = new Logger1(@"C:\log1.txt");

            // Short for DogLibrary.Utility.AlternateLogging.DogLogger
            Logger2 log2 = new Logger2(@"C:\log2.txt");
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#532 – Using Identically Named Types from Different Assemblies

March 5, 2012 1 Comment

If you want to use two types from different assemblies that have exactly the same name, including the namespace, your application won’t know which type to use.  The fully qualified type names are identical and you’ll get an error.

You can use both types in your project by providing an extern alias for the namespace hierarchy in one of the DLLs.

In Visual Studio, in your application, select the reference to one of the two assemblies.  Change the Aliases property from global to a new name.

Now include an extern alias statement in your code, using the same name.  Then use this alias to reference types in the aliased assembly.

using DogLibrary;   // FirstDogLibrary.dll

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    extern alias AnotherLib;

    class Program
    {
        static void Main()
        {
            // DogLibrary.Dog in FirstDogLibrary.dll
            Dog d = new Dog("Kirby", 12);

            // DogLibrary.Dog in AnotherDogLibrary.dll
            AnotherLib::DogLibrary.Dog d2 = new AnotherLib::DogLibrary.Dog("JRT", "Jack");
        }
    }
}

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#529 – The using Directive Can Create an Alias for a Namespace

February 29, 2012 Leave a comment

The most common use of the using directive is to bring types within a specified namespace into scope, so that they can be referenced directly in your code.

using DogLibrary;
using DogLibrary.Utility;

You can also use the using directive to create an alias for a namespace, which you can then use to access the types in that namespace.

In the example below, we have two different namespaces that each contain a DogLogger type.  Instead of having to list the fully qualified name of either DogLogger type when we use it, we can assign a shorter alias to refer to the containing namespace.

using U1 = DogLibrary.Utility.StandardLogging;
using U2 = DogLibrary.Utility.AlternateLogging;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main()
        {
            // Short for DogLibrary.Utility.StandardLogging.DogLogger
            U1.DogLogger log1 = new U1.DogLogger(@"C:\log1.txt");

            // Short for DogLibrary.Utility.AlternateLogging.DogLogger
            U2.DogLogger log2 = new U2.DogLogger(@"C:\log2.txt");
        }
    }
}

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