Purpose of stored-definition with several class definitions, and the within-clause

[henrikt-ma]

What is the purpose of allowing stored-definition to have zero or several class definitions?

If we are to keep it this way, the definition of the within-clause would need to be updated to better cover the case of not just a single class definition.

[HansOlsson]

What is the purpose of allowing stored-definition to have zero or several class definitions?

Historically it has been used (e.g., for "SaveTotal") - especially without within. Really annoying users can use it combination with within.

If we are to keep it this way, the definition of the within-clause would need to be updated to better cover the case of not just a single class definition.

I don't see that within causes a problem for it. Consider the following silly example of a package P containing a mo file as follows on Windows:

within P;
model MA
end MA;

model ma
end ma;

I don't know if there's a more relevant use case for this.

[HansOlsson]

Basically within allows tools to detect if files have just been moved around in the directory; thus it makes sense that there's only one within per file.

[henrikt-ma]

I don't see that within causes a problem for it. Consider the following silly example of a package P containing a mo file as follows on Windows:

within P;
model MA
end MA;

model ma
end ma;

There wouldn't be a clear way to name that file. So in addition to generalizing the within-clause to applying to every class in the stored-definition, we'd also have to say something about the filename-class mapping.

I don't know if there's a more relevant use case for this.

I'd prefer steering away from stored-definition with anything but a single class definition, rather than trying agree on exactly how it should work. As usual, tools would still keep support for legacy files with multiple classes for a long time. :)