How to develop your own
DSLs in Eclipse using Xtend
and Xtext ?
Daniel Strmečki | Software Developer
19.05.2016. BUSINESS WEB APPLICATIONS
HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
Content
1. DSLs
› What are DSLs?
› Kinds of DSLs?
› Their usage and benefits…
2. Xtend
› What kind of language is Xtend?
› What are its benefits compared to classic Java?
3. Xtext
› What is a language development framework?
› How to develop you own DSL?
4. Short demo
5. Conclusion
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
DSL acronym
Not in a Telecommunications context: Digital Subscriber Line
But in a Software Engineering context: Domain Specific
Languages
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
Domain Specific Languages
General-Purpose Languages (GPLs)
› Languages broadly applicable across application
domains
› Lack specialized features for a particular domain
› XML, UML, Java, C++, Python, PHP…
Domain specific languages (DSLs)
› Languages tailored to for an application in a specific
domain
› Provide substantial gains in expressiveness and ease of
use in their domain of application
› SQL, HTML, CSS, Logo, Mathematica, Marcos, Regular
expressions, Unix shell scripts, MediaWiki, LaTeX…
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
Domain Specific Languages
A novelty in software development
› DSL for programming numerically controlled machine
tools, was developed in 1957–1958
› BNF dates back to 1959 (M. Mernik)
The line between DSL and GPL
› A language may have specialized features for a
particular domain but be applicable more broadly
› A language may be capable of broad application but in
practice used primarily for a specific domain
› In combination with an application library, any GPL can
act as a DSL. Most DSLs never get beyond the
application library stage (M. Mernik)
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
Domain Specific Languages
The kind of DSL
› Domain Specific Markup Languages (XML, HTML)
› Domain Specific Modeling Languages (UML, BPMN)
› Domain Specific Programming Languages (…)
Design and implementation
› External DSL
› A free-standing DSL
› Designed to be independent of any GPL
› Internal or embedded DSL
› Implemented using a host language (e.g. Java)
› The goal is to exploit the metaprogramming
capabilities of the host language
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
Domain Specific Languages
Some benefits
› A higher abstraction level
› The same functionality achieved with less code
› Focusing on the problem and not on the solution
› Easier modifications
› Simplified maintenance
› Validation at the domain level
› The code is understood and validated by domain experts
› Shift the development to domain experts
› Business information systems development can be
partially shifted from traditional software developers
to the typically larger group of domain-experts
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
Domain Specific Languages
Develop your own DSLs
› DSL developments requires both domain and language
development knowledge and skills
› Both technical experts and non-technical domain
experts need to be involved in DSL development
› DSL development is hard and expensive
› Designing, implementing, and maintaining a DSL as
well as the tools required to develop with it is costly
› Developing an IDE for your DSL
› Developing the tool support required to ensure
quality and reliability of software developed by
end-user programmers (M. Mernik)
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Xtend is a statically-typed programming language which
meets the requirements for code generation and translates
to comprehensible Java source code
Eclipse project
› Open source under the Eclipse Public License
› Can be compiled and run independent of Eclipse
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Type of language
› Primarily an object-oriented language, but it also
integrates features from functional programming
› Statically-typed programming language
A JVM language
› Syntactically and semantically roots in Java but focuses
on a more concise syntax and additional functionality
› It uses Java's type system without modifications
› It translates to comprehensible Java source code and
thereby seamlessly integrates with all existing Java
libraries
› It has no interoperability issues with Java
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Philosophy
› Java, as one of the most popular programming languages,
has grown an enormous ecosystem of libraries and tools
› Java’s syntax is quite verbose, and some concepts are
missing and added very slowly
› Xtend gets the best of Java, but kills the syntactic noise
and adds essential new features for better readability and
more high level code
› Java code and Xtend code can be mixed in a same project
› Xtend can use Java libraries, call Java functions, use Java
objects…
› Xtend can be extended by means of libraries
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
A Hello World
› Eclipse will automatically translate Xtend to Java code
when you save your .xtend files
Type safety
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Extensions
› Enhanced closed types with new functionality
Lambda Expressions
› Lambdas for Java 8+ and anonymous classes for Java 7-
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Type casts
› Like casts in Java, but with more readable syntax
Equality operators
› Equals operators (==,!=) are bound to Object.equals
Null-safe calls and Groovy Elvis operator
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Arithmetic operators
› Operators are not limited to operations on certain types
With operator
› Initialize objects in subsequent lines of code
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Pair operator
› Use a pair of two elements locally without introducing a
new structure
Range operators
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEND
Template expressions
› A template expression can span multiple lines and allows
readable string concatenation with loops and conditions
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEXT
Xtext is a programming language development framework
that provides a powerful grammar language used to
generate a full language infrastructure
Eclipse project
› Open source under the Eclipse Public License
› Based on Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF), Xtend
and Google Guice
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEXT
Language Development Framework
› Xtext allows language developers to create a sophisticated
Eclipse-based development environment providing editing
experience known from modern Java IDEs in a surprisingly
short amount of time
› It provides a set of DSLs and modern APIs to describe the
different aspects of your programming language
› Based on the language description it gives a full
implementation of that language running on the JVM
› parser and a type-safe abstract syntax tree (AST)
› serializer and code formatter
› scoping framework and linking
› compiler checks and static analysis
› code generator or interpreter
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEXT
Your own DSL
› Eclipse
› Xtext project
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEXT
Extended Backus–Naur Form (EBNF) grammar
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEXT
Generate and test your DSL
› Generate the DSL implementation for your grammar
› Test your DSL in a new instance of Eclipse IDE
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEXT
Advanced features
› Formatting
› Validation
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
XTEXT
Code generation
More features
› …
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A SHORT DEMO
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HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN DSLS IN ECLIPSE USING XTEXT AND XTEND?
Conclusion
› DSLs can be developed when we are in the need for higher
abstraction levels and expressiveness in a certain domain
› The same functionality achieved with less code
› Xtend is a statically-typed programming language suited
for writing code generators that translates to
comprehensible Java source code
› Xtext is a language development framework that provides
a powerful grammar language used to generate a full
language infrastructure for your custom DSLs
› In Software engineering there are no universal solutions,
as it entails creative processes which are always critically
dependent on the unique abilities of the creative
people who perform them (M. A. Musen)
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Thanks for your attention
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