Migrating existing languages to EMFText 1.2.0

EMFText 1.2.0 introduces a different way of code generation compared to previous versions. Generated DSL plug-ins do not exhibit dependencies to EMFText Runtime plug-ins anymore. The plug-ins are completely independent of EMFText and can be deployed in environments where EMFText is not available. This principal change implies some steps that must be taken to migrate existing DSLs (i.e., syntax definitions) to the EMFText version 1.2.0.

Migrating binary versions

For compatibility reasons, EMFText 1.2.x versions contain the EMFText runtime plug-ins. Existing plug-ins can run against these runtime plug-ins. Recompilation is not needed.

Migrating source versions

To migrate DSLs that are present in source format one can either leave the generated resource plug-ins as they are or regenerate them. The first option requires the deprecated EMFText Runtime plug-ins and sacrifices the new features that can be gained by regeneration. The second option makes full use of all new features, but may require some manual adaptations of the existing code.

The easiest way to fully migrate an existing DSL is to follow these steps:

• Rename the generated language plug-in BEFORE regenerating
• Regenerate the text resource plug-in, which yields a fresh DSL plug-in
• Move the code that was manually modified in the original plug-in to the new plug-in. Ususally, this includes the bodies of the doResolve() and doDeResolve() in the resolvers (both reference and token resolvers)
• Fix the resulting compile errors by using the DSL-specific interfaces instead of the generic ones from the EMFText Runtime plug-ins (e.g., replace IReferenceResolver with IMyDSLReferenceResolver)
• Delete the old resource plug-in

If you encounter any problems, don't hesitate to contact the EMFText user mailing list (emftext-users [at] mail-st.inf.tu-dresden [dot] de).