alias is lexically scoped

Aliases are lexically scoped, allowing you to alias a module inside of a function and that alias will only exist in that function's scope. Also TIL: You can even alias over Elixir standard lib module names.

defmodule Cartography do
  def north_america do
   alias Earth.NorthAmerica.Map
   #Map is now Earth.NorthAmerica.Map
   # You can get to the normal Map module using Elixir.Map
  end

  def foo do
    #Map is still Elixir.Map
  end
end