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Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 14:36:12 +0200
From: Georg Bauhaus <bauhaus@futureapps.de>
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Subject: Re: ANN: Ada source code decorator
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Date: 2006-05-25T14:35:55+02:00
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Jeffrey R. Carter wrote:
> Stephen Leake wrote:
>>
>> I don't see how that is remotely possible. The whole point of ASIS is
>> to access the knowledge the compiler has about the source. Thus the
>> compiler has to provide functions to access that knowledge.

The compiler could provide a representation of its knowledge of the
source that uses XML. For example, internal trees (or graphs), where
the nodes carry information not only about names, etc, but also
about representations. Trees, or groves, are an ideal candidate for
XML based representation because an XML document instance is a tree
or graph, and XML based tools are made for working on these.

In fact, ASIS and XML use almost the same wording, e.g. element
trees.

> The point of ASIS is to provide a standard way to access information 
> about the source that the compiler has saved. The format of this 
> information is not specified. I suspect Wright is hoping an Ada-0X 
> version of ASIS will specify the format, using XML.

If ASIS were to provide a set of XML element definitions,
these could be used to write transformations to and from XMI,
easing the use of Ada with some OOD tools.
Getting a sorted index of all tagged types in a program will then
be very easy with XML tools: just declare the corresponding XPath
choice and employ XSL's sort and key functions. Done.

Which leads me to a question: Is there a set of "ASIS items" that
you use frequently? Items that could be useful when represented
using XML, even when the Ada information contained therein is limited?


-- Georg