Feature request: allow using the dash character in package names

[Peter Lawrey]

The problem with

error-handling

is that it currently parses the same as

error - handling

or

(error) - (handling)

You could try a different currency or continuation character however you
would need to check it is supported by the operating system.  An approach I
have used which works is

error.handling

This is a nested package but is quite readable.

Regards,
   Peter.


On 5 December 2016 at 06:54, David Holmes <david.holmes at oracle.com> wrote:

> Hi Behrang,
>
> On 5/12/2016 4:00 PM, Behrang Saeedzadeh wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Unless this is going to be very challenging, I think it would be nice to
>> allow using the dash character in package names.
>>
>
> There are global rules for the forms of all Java Identifiers based on
> Unicode character blocks, so we can't really special-case package names.
> The allowed characters include the "combining punctuators" which I believe
> are more formally defined as the "combining diacritical marks"
>
> http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0300.pdf
>
> (which includes the ASCII underscore). There are quite a lot of these that
> might look elegant if you could type them in directly, but not so elegant
> as unicode escapes:
>
> package my\u0323weird.package\u005fname.in\u0332pieces;
>
> :)  (the above does compile)
>
> "Dashes" have their own little grouping in Unicode and are considered
> in-word connectors - as in in-word :)
>
> But more significantly '-' is defined as an operator in Java and allowing
> it to also be part of an identifier would be quite a complication to the
> grammar and parsing rules.
>
> So yes it would be very challenging to change the rules here.
>
> At the moment there's no elegant way to create packages with compound
>> names. Underscore and camel case look don't feel suitable for package
>> names.
>>
>> So rather than:
>>
>> * error_handling, or
>> * errorHandling
>>
>> It would be nice if we could use:
>>
>> * error-handling
>>
>
> How about error.handling? Elegance is a very subjective thing.
>
> Regards,
> David
>
> Best regards,
>> Behrang Saeedzadeh
>>
>>