This folder defines ALE's source plug-ins. Here is an overview of their purposes.
| Bundle | Purpose |
|---|---|
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale |
Provides ALE's public API. |
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale.core |
Defines ALE's parsers and interpreter. |
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale.examples |
Provides Eclipse wizards to create example projects. |
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale.ide |
Integrates ALE within Eclipse IDE. |
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale.ide.ui |
Integrates ALE within Eclipse IDE's UI. |
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale.xtext |
Defines an xText grammar to provide a tailored ALE text editor. |
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale.xtext.ide |
(Generated) Provides services for the xText grammar. |
org.eclipse.emf.ecoretools.ale.xtext.ui |
(Generated) Integrates the xText grammar within Eclipse IDE's UI. |
Here is an introduction to how ALE works.
TODO: Insert a sequence diagram to make the flow clearer
- An ALE script can be interpeted through an Eclipse Launch Configuration. This Launch Configuration executes ALE in a background Job.
- See AleLaunchConfigurationDelegate for the definition of the Launch Configuration
- The Launch Configuration uses an instance of ALEInterpreter to start the execution of the script
- A DslBuilder is used to dynamically load the Ecore metamodel(s) to execute.
- An AstBuilder is used to parse the ALE script(s) and create a corresponding model (i.e. an objet representing the script's statements).
- Note: ALE is parsed with ANTLR. The reason why we don't rely on xText's parser is because ALE internally uses AQL to evaluate statements. AQL is parsed thanks to ANTLR so using xText would force us to re-write an AQL interpreter.
- Once both the syntaxes (i.e. the metamodels) and the semantics (i.e. the ALE scripts) are gathered, the entry point (the method annotated with
@main) is determined and given to an ALEEngine. - This ALEEngine uses a MethodEvaluator to actually interpret the different statements and to produce a result.