ScriptBasic does not have real name spaces to separate modules from each other. There are no such things as public and private variables of modules or classes. Whenever you develop a module you have to trust the programmer using the module that he or she will use the module in the way it is intended and the way you hopefully documented. A programmer should not use the internal variables of a module not because he can not but because he is supposed not to.
ScriptBasic name spaces only help the programmers to avoid accidental name collisions. When you develop a module you start it saying
MODULE MyModule
After this line until the end of the module which is noted by the line
END MODULE
will belong to the specific module and all global variables will belong to that module.
However all these module and name space handling is done on low level altering the names of the variables and functions. When you start to write a program and you write:
A = 3
print A
you actually use the variable main::A. This is because the default name space is main, and if there is no name space defined in a variable its name is altered so that the variable will belong to the current name space. The default name space is called main. Try the following:
A = 3
print main::A
It prints 3. Surprising? Try the following:
A=5
module boo
A=3
print main::A
end module
It will print 5. This is because main::A is 5, boo::A is 3 and the variable name main::A is not converted to boo::main::A, because it is explicitly denoted to belong to the name space main.
Name spaces can be nested. You can write:
A=1
module boo
A= 2
module boo::baa
A= 3
print A
print boo::A
print main::A
end module
end module
which will print 321.
To ease the nesting of modules you can write the same code as
A=1
module boo
A= 2
module ::baa
A= 3
print A
print _::A
print main::A
end module
end module
When the module name in the module declaration starts with double colon ScriptBasic knows that the module is to be nested into the current module. The variable name _::A means: the variable A of the surrounding name space. This is the same as the operating system directories. You can think of name spaces as directories and variables as files. Whenever you write
../../mydir/file.c
a similar construct may say
_::_::mynamespace::variable
When the parser sees the end module statement it always returns to the previous name space. You can start and close modules many times, ScriptBasic will not complain that the module was already defined. You can even totally neglect the module statement and you can write the above program as
boo::baa::A= 3
print boo::baa::A
print boo::A
print main::A
main::A=1
boo::A= 2
This is a bit less readable. Name spaces can serve another purpose. See the following code:
string = "AF"
hex = 0
while string <> ""
chr = mid(string,1,1)
string = mid(string,2)
hex = hex*16 + asc(chr) - asc("A")
wend
print hex
when you try to compile you will probably get many errors. Why? Because string, chr and hex are predefined functions and can not be used as variable names. What to do then? You can use them as variable names when you specify that they are variables:
::string = "AF"
::hex = 0
while ::string <> ""
::chr = mid(::string,1,1)
::string = mid(::string,2)
::hex = ::hex*16 + asc(::chr) - asc("A")
wend
print ::hex
When you write var{::string}, ::chr or ::hex ScriptBasic will know that they are variables belonging to the current name space. This is a bit weird, so you better avoid using function names and predefined function names as variable names.