Libraries and visibility in Dart

Imports library

Use import to specify how a namespace from one library is used in the scope of another library.

import 'dart:io';

The only required argument to import is a URI specifying the library. For built-in libraries, the URI has the special dart: scheme. For other libraries, you can use a file system path or the package: scheme. The package: scheme specifies libraries provided by a package manager such as the pub tool. For example:

import 'package:test/test.dart';

Importing only part of a library

If you want to use only part of a library, you can selectively import the library. For example:

// Import only foo.
import 'package:lib1/lib1.dart' show foo;

// Import all names EXCEPT foo.
import 'package:lib2/lib2.dart' hide foo;

library prefix

Specifying a library prefix

If you import two libraries that have conflicting identifiers, then you can specify a prefix for one or both libraries. For example, if library1 and library2 both have an Element class, then you might have code like this:

import 'package:lib1/lib1.dart';
import 'package:lib2/lib2.dart' as lib2;

// Uses Element from lib1.
Element element1 = Element();

// Uses Element from lib2.
lib2.Element element2 = lib2.Element();