C# Language Specification

Extern aliases

An extern-alias-directive introduces an identifier that serves as an alias for a namespace. The specification of the aliased namespace is external to the source code of the program and applies also to nested namespaces of the aliased namespace.

extern-alias-directives:
extern-alias-directive
extern-alias-directives extern-alias-directive

extern-alias-directive:
extern alias identifier ;

The scope of an extern-alias-directive extends over the using-directives, global-attributes and namespace-member-declarations of its immediately containing compilation unit or namespace body.

Within a compilation unit or namespace body that contains an extern-alias-directive, the identifier introduced by the extern-alias-directive can be used to reference the aliased namespace. It is a compile-time error for the identifier to be the word global.

An extern-alias-directive makes an alias available within a particular compilation unit or namespace body, but it does not contribute any new members to the underlying declaration space. In other words, an extern-alias-directive is not transitive, but, rather, affects only the compilation unit or namespace body in which it occurs.

The following program declares and uses two extern aliases, X and Y, each of which represent the root of a distinct namespace hierarchy:

extern alias X;

extern alias Y;

class Test

{
X::N.A a;
X::N.B b1;
Y::N.B b2;
Y::N.C c;
}

The program declares the existence of the extern aliases X and Y, but the actual definitions of the aliases are external to the program. The identically named N.B classes can now be referenced as X.N.B and Y.N.B, or, using the namespace alias qualifier, X::N.B and Y::N.B. An error occurs if a program declares an extern alias for which no external definition is provided.

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