Set default namespace

Sorry for the ambiguous subject line, but I could not find a better wording for it. Currently, when you use namespaces in PHP, whenever you want to call a function from inside a namespace you must either use the entire name of the namespace (potentially very long) or give it a shorter alias. Here is an example: namespace.inc namespace ProjectA; const WORD = 'foobar'; execute.php use ProjectA as A; print A::WORD; This works out fine. But when I change the two last lines in execute.php to: use ProjectA; print WORD; I get a warning saying "The use statement with non-compound name 'ProjectA' has no effect ..." and naturally also a notice about using a non-defined constant. So, the default namespace in use, is always global. What about if the default could be changed? It would put to rest the need to always specify the namespace from which to look for the function or class. This would mean that the last example of execute.php would be valid. You could also still access the global space with the following syntax: execute.php const BOOK = 'Two Towers'; use ProjectA; print ::BOOK; Any thoughts on this? Was this sort of approach considered when the namespaces were being implemented? Tomi Kaistila PHP Developer