116. A Short Alias for the Runtime Import

• Status: Implemented
• Date: 2026-10-22

#Problem and Mechanism

Generated code refers to the runtime package about six thousand times in the duckdb parser (rt.TParser, rt.TActCtx, rt.Shaper, ...), so the length of the alias counts. The alias is a choice of the generator, not part of any API: it does not change the exported names the generated packages declare or the signatures of their functions.

The generator imports the runtime as rt. The alias is one constant (runtimeAlias) used by the generator, the types package it writes and the checks that qualify runtime names; the user-facing signatures of Parse and the other entry points mention the runtime types with the alias. A package-level name rt cannot clash: the generator does not declare one and the names it derives from a grammar are types in a separate package.

#Results

parser.go with -typed-only, bytes (lines are unchanged) before and after:

The duckdb test binary is byte-for-byte the same size (19,201,970), since an import alias exists only at compile time; parse speed is not affected.

#Decision and Limits

Adopted. Tests that compare generated source or write consumers into the generated file use the alias constant's value.