On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:45 AM, Jeff Butler
<jeffgbutler@...> wrote:
Several topics:
1. Java file merging
The code for merging Java files is only in the Eclipse plugin. It uses the Eclipse AST parser and AST rewriter and cannot run outside of Eclipse. If you want to merge Java code, you must run in Eclipse.
In the far future, I hope to enable Java merging outside of Eclipse. The problem is that it's just so easy in Eclipse, and so difficult elsewhere! I think the long term solution is to write a specialized Java parser for Ibator using ANTLR or the like. Parsing Java source code is a non-trivial task and I have no interest in reinventing the wheel - so probably something like ANTLR is the right answer ultimately. If anyone is interested in making an important contribution to Ibator this would be a good area to look into :)
It may be possible to use AST standalone (much better than reinventing!) after navigating the licencing issues. AST is built on EMF which apparently can be used in a standalone app [1]. It would be worth it to build a sample app, to see just how tied to eclipse AST and EMF are.
