Re: [Vala] What is the internal access specification (Re: A couple of Vala questions)

[Al Thomas <astavale yahoo co uk>]

    > On Monday, 29 January 2018, 07:26:22 GMT, Manish Jain <jude obscure yandex com> wrote: 
> Does 'internal' hook into the Vala package system, meaning internal > members cannot be accessed from a 
> different package ?

A simple library like:
[CCode (gir_namespace = "libexample", gir_version = "0.1")]
namespace ExampleLib {

    public void test () {
        WhateverNameYouLikeForInternalUse.do_some_work ();
    }
}

namespace WhateverNameYouLikeForInternalUse {

    internal void do_some_work () {
        print( "Internal test function called\n" );
    }
}
compiled with the --hide-internal option like:valac demo.vala -X -fPIC -X -shared --hide-internal --library 
libexample --header libexample.h --gir libexample-0.1.gir --output libexample.so
will not show the internal function in the symbol table of the library. To see the symbols use:readelf 
--dyn-syms --wide libexample.so
If you look at the C code produced you should see the G_GNUCINTERNAL_MACRO being 
used:https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/glib-Miscellaneous-Macros.html#G-GNUC-INTERNAL:CAPS

I understand DLLs compiled for Windows with MSVC using a different arrangement - the symbols are hiddenby 
default. Vala doesn't currently do anything about that.
Regards,
Al