Implementing domain-specific languages with Xtext and Xtend / Lorenzo Bettini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bettini, Lorenzo.

Series:

Community experience distilled

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Software engineering.

Domain-specific programming languages.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (342 p.)

Edition:

1st edition

Other Title:

Learn how to implement a DSL with Xtext and Xtend using easy-to-understand examples and best practices

Place of Publication:

Birmingham : Packt Publishing, 2013.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

text file

Biography/History:

Bettini Lorenzo: Lorenzo Bettini is an associate professor in computer science at the Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "Giuseppe Parenti, " Universit di Firenze, Italy. Previously, he was a researcher in computer science at Dipartimento di Informatica, Universit di Torino, Italy. He also was a Postdoc and a contractual researcher at Dipartimento di Sistemi e Informatica, Universit di Firenze, Italy. He has a masters degree summa cum laude in computer science and a PhD in "Logics and Theoretical Computer Science. " His research interests cover design, theory, and the implementation of programming languages (in particular, objectoriented languages and network-aware languages). He has been using Xtext since version 0. 7. He has used Xtext and Xtend for implementing many domain-specific languages and Java-like programming languages. He also contributed to Xtext, and he recently became an Xtext committer. He is the author of the first edition of the book "Implementing Domain-Specific Languages with Xtext and Xtend", published by Packt Publishing (August 21, 2013). He is also the author of about 80 papers published in international conferences and international journals. You can contact him at http: //www. lorenzobettini. it.

Summary:

If you know Eclipse then learning how to implement a DSL using Xtext is a natural progression. And this guide makes it easy to get started through a step-by-step approach accompanied with simple examples. Learn to quickly develop a domain-specific language with Xtext Implement any aspect of a DSL using Xtend, a fully featured Java-like programming language Discover how to test a DSL implementation and how to customize runtime and IDE aspects of the DSL In Detail Xtext is an open source Eclipse framework for implementing domain-specific languages together with its IDE functionalities. It lets you implement languages really quickly, and, most of all, it covers all aspects of a complete language infrastructure, starting from the parser, code generator, interpreter, and more. "Implementing Domain-Specific Languages with Xtext and Xtend" will teach you how to develop a DSL with Xtext, an Eclipse framework for implementing domain-specific languages. The chapters are like tutorials that describe the main concepts of Xtext such as grammar definition, validation, code generation, customizations, and many more, through uncomplicated and easy-to-understand examples. Starting with briefly covering the features of Xtext that are involved in a DSL implementation, including integration in an IDE, the book will then introduce you to Xtend as this language will be used in all the examples throughout the book. We then proceed by explaining the main concepts of Xtext, such as validation, code generation, and customizations of runtime and UI aspects. By the end of the book, you will have learned how to test a DSL implemented in Xtext with Junit, in order to follow a test-driven development strategy that will help the developer implement maintainable code that is much faster and cleaner. A test-driven approach is used throughout the book when presenting advanced concepts such as type checking and scoping. The book also shows you how to build and release a DSL so that it can be installed in Eclipse, and gives you hints on how to build the DSL headlessly in a continuous integration server. "Implementing Domain-Specific Languages with Xtext and Xtend" aims to complement the official Xtext documentation to explain the main concepts through simplified examples and to teach the best practices for a DSL implementation in Xtext. It is a Beginner’s Guide which should set you up for professional development DSL and its Eclipse IDE tooling.

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgement

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Implementing a DSL

Domain Specific Languages

So, why should you create a new language?

Implementing a DSL

Parsing

The Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)

IDE integration

Syntax highlighting

Background parsing

Error markers

Content Assist

Hyperlinking

Quickfixes

Outline

Automatic build

Summarizing DSL implementation

Enter Xtext

Installing Xtext

Let's try Xtext

The aim of this book

Summary

Chapter 2: Creating Your First Xtext Language

A DSL for entities

Creating the project

Xtext projects

Modifying the grammar

Let's try the Editor

The Xtext generator

The Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)

Improvements to the DSL

Dealing with types

Chapter 3: The Xtend Programming Language

An introduction to Xtend

Using Xtend in your projects

Xtend - a better Java with less "noise

Extension methods

The implicit variable - it

Lambda expressions

Multi-line template expressions

Additional operators

Polymorphic method invocation

Enhanced switch expressions

Debugging Xtend code

Chapter 4: Validation

Validation in Xtext

Default validators

Custom validators

Textual modification

Model modification

Quickfixes for default validators

Chapter 5: Code Generation

Introduction to code generation

Writing a code generator in Xtend

Integration with the Eclipse build mechanism

Standalone command-line compiler

Chapter 6: Customizations

Dependency injection

Google Guice in Xtext

Customizations of IDE concepts

Labels

The Outline view

Customizing other aspects

Custom formatting

Other customizations.

Summary

Chapter 7: Testing

Introduction to testing

Junit 4

The ISetup interface

Implementing tests for your DSL

Testing the parser

Testing the validator

Testing the formatter

Testing code generation

Test suite

Testing the UI

Testing the content assist

Testing workbench integration

Testing the editor

Other UI testing frameworks

Testing and modularity

Clean code

Chapter 8: An Expression Language

The Expressions DSL

Digression on Xtext grammar rules

The grammar for the Expressions DSL

Left recursive grammars

Associativity

Precedence

The complete grammar

Forward references

Typing expressions

Type provider

Validator

Writing an interpreter

Using the interpreter

Chapter 9: Type Checking

SmallJava

SmallJava grammar

Rules for declarations

Rules for statements and syntactic predicates

Rules for expressions

Utility methods

Testing the grammar

First validation rules

Checking cycles in class hierarchies

Checking member selections

Checking return statements

Checking for duplicates

Type checking

Type provider for SmallJava

Type conformance (subtyping)

Expected types

Checking type conformance

Checking method overriding

Improving the UI

Chapter 10: Scoping

Cross-reference resolution in Xtext

Containments and cross-references

The index

Qualified names

Exported objects

The linker and the scope provider

Component interaction

Custom scoping

Scope for blocks

Scope for inheritance and member visibility

Visibility and accessibility

Filtering unwanted objects from the scope

Global scoping

Packages and imports

The index and the containers

Checking duplicates across files.

Providing a library

Default imports

Using the library outside Eclipse

Using the library in the type system and scoping

Dealing with super

What to put in the index?

Additional automatic features

Chapter 11: Building and Releasing

Release engineering

Headless builds

Target platforms

Continuous integration

Introduction to Buckminster

Installing Buckminster

Using the Xtext Buckminster wizard

Building the p2 repository from Eclipse

Customizations

Defining the target platform

Build headlessly

Maintaining the examples of this book

Chapter 13: Xbase

Getting introduced with Xbase

The Expressions DSL with Xbase

The IJvmModelInferrer interface

Code generation

Debugging

The Entities DSL with Xbase

Defining attributes

Defining operations

Imports

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781782160311

1782160310

OCLC:

857278051