Key Takeaways Chapter 2 of Implementing Domain-Specific Languages with Xtext and Xtend – Second Edition

These are the key takeaways from Chapter 2 of Implementing Domain-Specific Languages with Xtext and Xtend – Second Edition. Chapter 2. Creating Your First Xtext Language

Creating a hello world Xtext project in Eclipse

  • File -> New -> Project -> Xtext -> Xtext Project
  • Fill out Project name, Name and Extensions
  • Finish

The project solution contains the following projects

  • org.example.entities – the main project where you’ll add your dsl definitions
  • org.example.entities.tests – contains the JUnit test for the main project
  • org.example.entities.ide – this contains ide specific component for the UI
  • org.example.entities.ui – contains UI components for the Eclipse UI
  • org.example.entities.ui.tests – the unittest project for the UI project

You’ll have the basic hello world in your xtext file in org.example.entities

grammar org.example.entities.Entities with org.eclipse.xtext.common.Terminals

generate entities "http://www.example.org/entities/Entities"

Model:
  greetings+=Greeting*;

Greeting:
  'Hello' name = ID '!';

Once run the Generate Xtext Artifact by right-clicking on GenerateEntities.mwe2. Afterwards right-clicking the xtext file and run it every time you have completed a modification. It’ll generate several new folder with the generated files like the src-gen folder. Run As -> Generate Xtext Artifacts

Key Takeaways Chapter 2 of Implementing Domain-Specific Languages with Xtext and Xtend - Second Edition

Xtext will generate many artifacts for the DLS and other IDE tooling.

  • AST – abstract syntax tree
  • BNF – Backus Normal Form (like pseudo code)