Re: ANNOUNCE: Avatox 1.0 is now available

["Marc A. Criley" <mcNOSPAM@mckae.com>]

Manuel Collado wrote:

 > What puzzles me is that the XML structure (nesting) doesn't follows the 
lexical Ada source structure. Example from avatox.adb --> avatox.adb.xml:
 >
 > <A_CLAUSE ... startLine="29" endLine="29" startCol="1" endCol="29">
 >   <A_WITH_CLAUSE ... startLine="29" endLine="29" startCol="1" endCol="29"/>
 >   <AN_EXPRESSION ... startLine="29" endLine="29" startCol="6" endCol="28">
 >     <A_SELECTED_COMPONENT ... startLine="29" endLine="29" startCol="6" 
endCol="28"/>
 >     <AN_EXPRESSION ... startLine="29" endLine="29" startCol="6" endCol="19">
 >       ....
 >
 > You can see that <A_WITH_CLAUSE> from (29,1) to (29,29) lexically 
contains <AN_EXPRESSION> from (29,6) to (29,28). But the latest is not 
nested inside the former. Instead, it appears as a sibling of it.
 >
 > The same for <A_SELECTED_COMPONENT> from (29,6) to (29,28) and 
<AN_EXPRESSION> from (29,6) to (29,19).
 >
 > Is that the intended behaviour?


Blame it on the Display_Source program which served as the progenitor of 
Avatox :-)  Here's what Display_Source generates for the corresponding 
portion that you reference:

A_CLAUSE
   A_WITH_CLAUSE
->AN_EXPRESSION
->  A_SELECTED_COMPONENT
--->AN_EXPRESSION

Avatox really did little more to the output than wrap it with an XML 
syntax.  It then added value by providing the position info and some basic 
"meta-information", i.e, the "pedigree" of an XML element, for the aid of 
post-processors.

My interest is what can happen when starting with the XML and processing 
it, rather than trying to find the bestest XML representation of an Ada 
program.  So I did minimal processing to get the XML, even if it means 
there's redundant stuff in it.  So long as its consistent, well-ordered, 
and complete (meaning all the clauses, comments, and position info), I'm happy.

-- Marc A. Criley
-- Mckae Technologies
-- www.mckae.com
-- DTraq - Avatox - XIA - XML EZ Out