{"id":103564,"date":"2020-03-16T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/?p=103564"},"modified":"2023-01-03T08:58:49","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T16:58:49","slug":"20200316-00","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20200316-00\/?p=103564","title":{"rendered":"The Windows Runtime IDL compiler lets you abbreviate some interface names"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you use an unqualified name in a Windows Runtime IDL file, it is looked up in the current namespace. If you need a name from another namespace, you need to provide its full name.<\/p>\n

namespace Contoso.Widgets\r\n{\r\n  runtimeclass Widget\r\n  {\r\n    Windows.Foundation.Collections.IVectorView<\/u><String> GetNames();\r\n  }\r\n}\r\n<\/pre>\n
There is an exception to this rule: If a parameterized type is given without a namespace, then the Windows Runtime IDL compiler will look in the Windows.Foundation.Collections<\/code> namespace before giving up. In practice, this means that you can use the following shorthand:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Shorthand<\/th>\nExpands to<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
IIterable<T><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IIterable<T><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IIterator<T><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IIterator<T><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IKeyValuePair<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IKeyValuePair<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IMap<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IMap<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IMapChangedEventArgs<K><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IMapChangedEventArgs<K><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IMapView<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IMapView<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IObservableMap<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IObservableMap<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IObservableVector<T><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IObservableVector<T><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IVector<T><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IVector<T><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IVectorView<T><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.IVectorView<T><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MapChangedEventHandler<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.MapChangedEventHandler<K, V><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
VectorChangedEventHandler<T><\/tt><\/td>\nWindows.Foundation.Collections.VectorChangedEventHandler<T><\/tt><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Resulting in<\/p>\n
namespace Contoso.Widgets\r\n{\r\n  runtimeclass Widget\r\n  {\r\n    IVectorView<\/u><String> GetNames();\r\n  }\r\n}\r\n<\/pre>\n
Unfortunately, this courtesy does not apply to the Windows.Foundation<\/code> namespace. You still have to write the full name Windows.Foundation.IAsyncAction<\/code>, for example.<\/p>\n
Bonus chatter<\/b>: Why does the shorthand work for Windows.Foundation.Collections<\/code> but not Windows.Foundation<\/code>? Simple: When the compiler was being written, nobody asked for a shorthand for the Windows.Foundation<\/code> namespace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
But only a few of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-103564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-code"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
But only a few of them.<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}