Merge PR #2 into code without breaking it

[sbryngelson]

Merge PR #2 into code without breaking it (the new code or the old code)

[sbryngelson]

That's fair enough, and I'm open to other titles or descriptions. The point is that I would like to see an example of a case that uses this feature of the additional code and merges the additional code into common/. Does that make sense? I haven't looked at all the details in a while, so let me know.