Including Script Files

Including Script Files in Scripts

A Class or Namespace script in the workspace or in a script file may specify that other script files are to be loaded prior to the fixing of the script itself. To do so, it must begin with one or more :Require statements, with the following syntax:

:Require file://[path]/file

If no path is specified, the path is taken to be relative to the current script file or, if in a workspace script, the current working directory. Note that a leading './' or '.\' in path is not allowed, to avoid any potential confusion with "current directory".

:Require is a directive to the Editor (more specifically, to the internal mechanism that fixes a script as an object in the workspace) and can appear in any script containing APL code, but must precede all code in the script. :Require is thus not valid within a function, class, namespace or any other definition.

The prefix file:// allows for the possibility of a future extension of http:// and ftp://.

In version 19.0 ⍝!:require is a synonym for :Require. This allows the user to create scripts which can be used in multiple versions of Dyalog; in 14.1 and earlier SALT parses ⍝!:require statements and loads the appropriate files, in 19.0 it is the interpreter loads the file named in ⍝!:require statements. Dyalog intends to remove support for the ⍝!:require statement from the interpreter in a future version. Note that unlike :Require, ⍝!:require can appear within code.