Allowing of "leaking" internals

[j-mie6]

Often, I'd like it so that my macros can make use of "internal" library functionality not available to the user (which I denote via private [library] qualifiers on classes/methods). I don't want the users to see these things, as it introduces noise into the documentation for stuff that might have invariants or other things that mean I don't think they should be playing around with them (if they really want to, they can make something in package library).

However, with the way that inlining works, if you use a private [library] thing in a macro, the underlying implementation will (necessarily) leak into the user package. That could be considered a feature, or it could be considered a bug. As long as the macro is defined within package library, I see no reason to stop me from allowing access to private [library] members within the macro -- I am in charge of whether or not these things should escape, and from a bytecode perspective, they are technically bytecode public anyway, so no issues there.

An argument could be made that this could circumvent the binary compatibility checks if used improperly: if I expose a foo with the private qualifier, then MiMA would skip over it for checks, but that means a modification could silently pass through for a library that had compiled against mine and used the macro in the process -- not ideal.

It might be nice if there was a middle-ground. I can declare something as private [library], but denote somehow that I allow (and intend) for macros to "expose" it to the user in a controlled way, and that we should be careful to ensure it's binary API remains consistent (i.e. treat it as public). Thoughts?

[bishabosha]

Are you aware of the @publicInBinary annotation?

[j-mie6]

Yes, though I don't think this helps for my specific use-case. private [pkg] are public in binary already, but they cannot be exposed by macro implementations. It's about what the macro can expose to the users that perhaps they couldn't have "seen" on their own.

[bishabosha]

Ok so something like deprecated unless via macro inlining

[j-mie6]

Or just private unless via macro inlining: I guess my thinking here is I don't want it visible in, say, the documentation