My goal is to create (find if exist) a tool which can produce swift files from templates.
For example, let’s say I need to create new ViewController with UITableView. It should be based on MVVM architecture with dependency injection. Let’s name this View “PersonsList”.
So, for this task I need to produce:
PersonListViewController
PersonListViewModel
PersonListViewModelProtocol
PersonCell
VM for cell and protocol for VM
Lots of files.
I want to say to my tool something like that
create tableview-template Person
and as a result get generated files. Files should contain empty implementation of each classes.
How should I do that? I am thinking about simple console app but I don’t know which language I should use. Maybe there is a better idea? Maybe there is a ready tool? Any help? :)
You could manually create the templates yourself and then write a short script (in Python / bash / swift etc) that goes through and replaces keywords with arguments you've passed in.
I am using a function for sorting arrays inside my calc document, which is supplied via an extension. However, transferring the file to a different system, where the extension isn't installed, breaks the function. Since the file is designed to be shared with many other users, it is impractical to instruct each of them to install the necessary extension individually.
Is there a way to embed/link the function supplied by the extensions to the .ods-file itself in such a way that the function wont break on file transfer?
When I tried to embed an add-in into a document by modifying manifest.xml, the add-in was ignored. Also, I ran into other limitations of embedding, such as not allowing importing from a pythonpath folder.
The documentation is rather difficult, but these two links perhaps support my conclusion:
https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Spreadsheets/Spreadsheet_Add-Ins
https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/WritingUNO/Deployment_Options_for_Components
So it looks like the possibilities are to either require people to install the extension, or use a user-defined function instead of an add-in. It should be possible to embed a UDF in a document.
In Objective-C we could add a C Flag of -DVAR_NAME=#\"string value\" and then get the value with NSString *var = VAR_NAME.
How do we do this in Swift?
An example of this would be defining an api host based on the current git branch. Say the branch is feature1 and it should connected to https://feature1.example.com. A shell script can easily find the current branch and add the C Flag. Then in Objective-C we can use the branch from the shell script to generate the api host url.
Update
I am not asking about boolean flags. I need to pass a string value.
Update 2
So far all I can come up with is to use a build script to generate a swift class.
Update 3
Another option is to add custom keys to the Info.plist. This isn't always an acceptable solution but for configuration values this works.
Macros are evil. They have been abused for things like this and it's not a clean solution. You have the following options (some of them already mentioned by you).
Info.plist
The most simple, easy to read and edit. Not good for big configurations.
Your own .plist.
Easy to read and edit (even from command line tools before the build, see PlistBuddy tool). Better for bigger configurations.
Auto generated code
Your code can contain an expression that can be matched easily, e.g.
let myConfigValue = "${MY-CONFIG-VALUE}".
You can replace those values easily using command line tools, e.g. sed. This basically replicates macros without using C preprocessor. This is not very clean but usable if you already have a build system that you don't want to change.
Multiple code variants
You can have a Swift file with configuration constants and use #if to switch between them.
Define a condition like this:
var window: UIWindow?
#if MYDEF
var textureRenderThread : TextureRenderThread?
#endif
In the Project->Build Settings->Swift Compiler->Custom Flags
Set "-D MYDEF" as the value for "Other Swift Flags"
EDIT: I completely re-wrote the question since it seems like I was not clear enough in my first two versions. Thanks for the suggestions so far.
I would like to internationalize the source code for a tutorial project (please notice, not the runtime application). Here is an example (in Java):
/** A comment */
public String doSomething() {
System.out.println("Something was done successfully");
}
in English , and then have the French version be something like:
/** Un commentaire */
public String faitQuelqueChose() {
System.out.println("Quelque chose a été fait avec succès.");
}
and so on. And then have something like a properties file somewhere to edit these translations with usual tools, such as:
com.foo.class.comment1=A comment
com.foo.class.method1=doSomething
com.foo.class.string1=Something was done successfully
and for other languages:
com.foo.class.comment1=Un commentaire
com.foo.class.method1=faitQuelqueChose
com.foo.class.string1=Quelque chose a été fait avec succès.
I am trying to find the easiest, most efficient and unobtrusive way to do this with the least amount of manual grunt work (other than obviously translating the actual text). Preferably working under Eclipse. For example, the original code would be written in English, then externalized (to properties, preferably leaving the original source untouched), translated (humanly) and then re-generated (as a separate source file / project).
Some trails I have found (other than what AlexS suggested):
AntLR, a language parser / generator. There seems to be a supporting Eclipse plugin
Using Eclipse's AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) and I guess building some kind of plugin.
I am just surprised there isn't a tool out there that does this already.
I'd use unique strings as methodnames (or anything you want to be replaced by localized versions.
public String m37hod_1() {
System.out.println(m355a6e_1);
}
then I'd define a propertyfile for each language like this:
m37hod_1=doSomething
m355a6e_1="Something was done successfully"
And then I'd write a small program parsing the sourcefiles and replacing the strings. So everything just outside eclipse.
Or I'd use the ant task Replace and propertyfiles as well, instead of a standalone translation program.
Something like that:
<replace
file="${src}/*.*"
value="defaultvalue"
propertyFile="${language}.properties">
<replacefilter
token="m37hod_1"
property="m37hod_1"/>
<replacefilter
token="m355a6e_1"
property="m355a6e_1"/>
</replace>
Using one of these methods you won't have to explain anything about localization in your tutorials (except you want to), but can concentrate on your real topic.
What you want is a massive code change engine.
ANTLR won't do the trick; ASTs are necessary but not sufficient. See my essay on Life After Parsing. Eclipse's "AST" may be better, if the Eclipse package provides some support for name and type resolution; otherwise you'll never be able to figure out how to replace each "doSomething" (might be overloaded or local), unless you are willing to replace them all identically (and you likely can't do that, because some symbols refer to Java library elements).
Our DMS Software Reengineering Toolkit could be used to accomplish your task. DMS can parse Java to ASTs (including comment capture), traverse the ASTs in arbitrary ways, analyze/change ASTs, and the export modified ASTs as valid source code (including the comments).
Basically you want to enumerate all comments, strings, and declarations of identifiers, export them to an external "database" to be mapped (manually? by Google Translate?) to an equivalent. In each case you want to note not only the item of interest, but its precise location (source file, line, even column) because items that are spelled identically in the original text may need different spellings in the modified text.
Enumeration of strings is pretty easy if you have the AST; simply crawl the tree and look for tree nodes containing string literals. (ANTLR and Eclipse can surely do this, too).
Enumeration of comments is also straightforward if the parser you have captures comments. DMS does. I'm not quite sure if ANTLR's Java grammar does, or the Eclipse AST engine; I suspect they are both capable.
Enumeration of declarations (classes, methods, fields, locals) is relatively straightforward; there's rather more cases to worry about (e.g., anonymous classes containing extensions to base classes). You can code a procedure to walk the AST and match the tree structures, but here's the place that DMS starts to make a difference: you can write surface-syntax patterns that look like the source code you want to match. For instance:
pattern local_for_loop_index(i: IDENTIFIER, t: type, e: expression, e2: expression, e3:expression): for_loop_header
= "for (\t \i = \e,\e2,\e3)"
will match declarations of local for loop variables, and return subtrees for the IDENTIFIER, the type, and the various expressions; you'd want to capture just the identifier (and its location, easily done by taking if from the source position information that DMS stamps on every tree node). You'd probably need 10-20 such patterns to cover the cases of all the different kinds of identifiers.
Capture step completed, something needs to translate all the captured entities to your target language. I'll leave that to you; what's left is to put the translated entities back.
The key to this is the precise source location. A line number isn't good enough in practice; you may have several translated entities in the same line, in the worst case, some with different scopes (imagine nested for loops for example). The replacement process for comments, strings and the declarations are straightforward; rescan the tree for nodes that match any of the identified locations, and replace the entity found there with its translation. (You can do this with DMS and ANTLR. I think Eclipse ADT requires you generate a "patch" but I guess that would work.).
The fun part comes in replacing the identifier uses. For this, you need to know two things:
for any use of an identifier, what is the declaration is uses; if you know this, you can replace it with the new name for the declaration; DMS provides full name and type resolution as well as a usage list, making this pretty easy, and
Do renamed identifiers shadow one another in scopes differently than the originals? This is harder to do in general. However, for the Java language, we have a "shadowing" check, so you can at least decide after renaming that you have an issues. (There's even a renaming procedure that can be used to resolve such shadowing conflicts
After patching the trees, you simply rewrite the patched tree back out as a source file using DMS's built-in prettyprinter. I think Eclipse AST can write out its tree plus patches. I'm not sure ANTLR provides any facilities for regenerating source code from ASTs, although somebody may have coded one for the Java grammar. This is harder to do than it sounds, because of all the picky detail. YMMV.
Given your goal, I'm a little surprised that you don't want a sourcefile "foo.java" containing "class foo { ... }" to get renamed to .java. This would require not only writing the transformed tree to the translated file name (pretty easy) but perhaps even reconstructing the directory tree (DMS provides facilities for doing directory construction and file copies, too).
If you want to do this for many languages, you'd need to run the process once per language. If you wanted to do this just for strings (the classic internationalization case), you'd replace each string (that needs changing, not all of them do) by a call on a resource access with a unique resource id; a runtime table would hold the various strings.
One approach would be to finish the code in one language, then translate to others.
You could use Eclipse to help you.
Copy the finished code to language-specific projects.
Then:
Identifiers: In the Outline view (Window>Show View>Outline), select each item and Refactor>Rename (Alt+Shift+R). This takes care of renaming the identifier wherever it's used.
Comments: Use Search>File to find all instances of "/*" or "//". Click on each and modify.
Strings:
Use Source>Externalize strings to find all of the literal strings.
Search>File for "Messages.getString()".
Click on each result and modify.
On each file, ''Edit>Find/Replace'', replacing "//\$NON-NLS-.*\$" with empty string.
for the printed/logged string, java possess some internatization functionnalities, aka ResourceBundle. There is a tutorial about this on oracle site
Eclipse also possess a funtionnality for this ("Externalize String", as i recall).
for the function name, i don't think there anything out, since this will require you to maintain the code source on many version...
regards
Use .properties file, like:
Locale locale = new Locale(language, country);
ResourceBundle captions= ResourceBundle.getBundle("Messages",locale);
This way, Java picks the Messages.properties file according to the current local (which is acquired from the operating system or Java locale settings)
The file should be on the classpath, called Messages.properties (the default one), or Messages_de.properties for German, etc.
See this for a complete tutorial:
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/i18n/intro/steps.html
As far as the source code goes, I'd strongly recommend staying with English. Method names like getUnternehmen() are worse to the average developer then plain English ones.
If you need to familiarize foreign developers to your code, write a proper developer documentation in their language.
If you'd like to have Javadoc in both English and other languages, see this SO thread.
You could write your code using freemarker templates (or another templating language such as velocity).
doSomething.tml
/** ${lang['doSomething.comment']} */
public String ${lang['doSomething.methodName']}() {
System.out.println("${lang['doSomething.message']}");
}
lang_en.prop
doSomething.comment=A comment
doSomething.methodName=doSomething
doSomething.message=Something was done successfully
And then merge the template with each language prop file during your build (using Ant / Gradle / Maven etc.)
I'm trying to come up with a way to make it easy to switch out our "mock" data services and our live ones. Basically, we'll have live servers with real web services, but for whatever reason, a developer may want to load data from static files (file urls).
I figured I would solve this problem by creating categories that override the methods that fetch the data, thus leaving original code untouched (it has no concept of the "mock" data). I don't want to litter my code with #ifdef.
I can put an #ifdef at the very beginning of each file that has categories in it, and I can set a custom flag in the configuration settings, but I'd rather just have a way to include or exclude the files depending on the configuration. Is that possible? How do you solve this problem?
See http://lists.apple.com/archives/xcode-users/2009/Jun/msg00153.html
The trick is to define EXCLUDED_SOURCE_FILE_NAMES in the configuration you want to exclude the files from, and set the value of that custom build setting to a list of the file names (or a pattern that matches those, and only those, file names).
I would recommend creating two targets one of which has the mock categories included and another one which does not.
When you want to test, just build the target containing the mock categories. Everything else can remain identical.
If you would like to add a file but do not wont to compile it. Go to (for all your targets) project>build phases>compile source and take out the file that you do not want to compile.