# Submodules accessing global variables in Parent module

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/submodules-accessing-global-variables-in-parent-module/80164>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** module\
**Created:** [April 27, 2022, 5:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/submodules-accessing-global-variables-in-parent-module/80164 "2022-04-27T17:52:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tom-plaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@tom-plaa](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tom-plaa)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 5:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/submodules-accessing-global-variables-in-parent-module/80164/1 "2022-04-27T17:52:03Z")

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How can we make a submodule access a variable defined in its parent module?  
Sorry if this is a really basic question, but I’ve spent almost an hour looking for an answer without any success. I have only seen how to access variables from other child modules at the same hierarchical level, or just unrelated modules. Accessing stuff defined in the parent module would seem to be the most natural one of the “inheritances”, so this is a bit counter intuitive to me. I’m thinking it akin to a “closure”, I guess:

```julia
module Parent
const a = 10

module Child
main() = println(a)
end

end

```

on the REPL:

```julia
julia> Parent.Child.main()
ERROR: UndefVarError: a not defined
Stacktrace:
 [1] main()
   @ Main.Parent.Child ./REPL[42]:6
 [2] top-level scope
   @ REPL[43]:1

```

The use case in question:  
I’m working on some complex code that reads and writes across different files on many directories. I have defined a TOML configuration file that stores the directories to use. At the moment I can make it work if I always parse the config file inside every child module, but I would rather do it once in the parent module and make it so that everything is neat and organized for the child modules.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lmiq](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/lmiq/32/18314_2.png) [@lmiq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lmiq)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/submodules-accessing-global-variables-in-parent-module/80164/2 "2022-04-27T17:56:11Z")

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```julia
julia> module Parent
       const a = 10

       module Child
       import ..Parent: a
       main() = println(a)
       end

       end
Main.Parent

julia> using .Parent

julia> Parent.Child.main()
10

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tom-plaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@tom-plaa](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tom-plaa)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2022, 5:57pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/submodules-accessing-global-variables-in-parent-module/80164/3 "2022-04-27T17:57:16Z")

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> [@lmiq](#):
>
> `import ..Parent: a`

WR for solution?  
Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tom-plaa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d26b3c/32.png) [@tom-plaa](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/tom-plaa)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 3:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/submodules-accessing-global-variables-in-parent-module/80164/4 "2022-04-28T15:31:01Z")

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As an afterthought:  
This implies that we are looking in the parent directory of the “Parent” module, right? This doesn’t seem very different from just making a “brother module” on the same level as “Child” and then reading the variable from there:

```julia
module Parent

module Brother
const a = 10
end

module Child
import .Brother: a
main() = println(a)
end

end

```

Or even then just a completely unrelated module on the same level of “Parent” and accessing it as

```julia
module Unrelated
const a = 10
end

module Parent

module Child
import ..Unrelated: a
main() = println(a)
end

end

```

Is there any merit for one of these approaches over the others?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lmiq](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/lmiq/32/18314_2.png) [@lmiq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/lmiq)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/submodules-accessing-global-variables-in-parent-module/80164/5 "2022-04-28T16:00:29Z")

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Julia code generally don’t have many submodules, because they are not needed to avoid most name clashes that occur in OO languages. So the answer is that none of these patterns is very idiomatic in Julia.