kopilov / typeparser

Parse Strings into Ceylon metamodels

typeparser

Facilities for parsing and formatting type expression-like Strings into Ceylon metamodels.

Type expressions

The TypeParser can be used to parse an expression into a Type. It can be configured to allow unqualified names using Imports (which function rather like the import statement), but by default uses full-qualified names. The parseType() function is provided as a shortcut.

assert(is Type<> stringType = parseType("ceylon.language::String"));

// Adding a Package to the imports is like a wildcard import
assert(is Type<> stringType2 = parseType("String", [`package ceylon.language`]));

// By default the usual abbreviations are supported
assert(is Type<> optionalStringType = parseType("String?", [`package ceylon.language`]);

assert(is ParseError error = parseType("Foo?", [`package ceylon.language`]);

The TypeFormatter does the reverse and formats a Type<> to a String (but not that the string attribute of Type is good if all you need a fully-qualified and unabbreviated expressions).

print(TypeFormatter().format(`String[]`, [`package ceylon.language`]));
// prints "String[]"

Model expressions

The ModelParser supports parsing more general model reference expressions:

assert(is Function<> printFunction = parseModel("ceylon.language::print"));

But currently this doesn't support Imports, nor type abbreviations.