Roadmap

Originally Proposed in this Issue

Here is what I propose:

• Add problem reporting mechanism

  • Introduce a Location object (source path + Position, comparable)
  • Introduce a Problem object (comparable based on Location)
  • Introduce a Reporter interface and an implementation that creates and stores problems
  • Make ParserException have a list of problems

• Make JavaParser a state-full object

  • Give access to the (exception-free) reporting mechanism
  • Keep static helpers that throw ParseException

• Introduce NoopVoidVisitor and NoopGenericVisitor

• Add a Checks class (that takes a reporter)

  • Implement no-cost semantic checks
    • Modifiers coherence
    • ...
  • Extract checks currently made inside the grammar (so that people can use them to check hand-created nodes)
    • Call the checks from the grammar
  • Implement a check(Node) (that uses a noop void visitor)
  • Implement a deepCheck(Node) (that uses a scanner void visitor)

• Lexical preservation

  • Introduce Lexeme class (begin and end position, kind, image)
  • Replace the four position integers in Node with a first and last Lexeme
  • Replace the constructor of AST node accordingly
  • Adapt the grammar to use the new constructors (All this is similar to what I've done in grammar-work)

• AST consistency consolidation

  • Remove MultiTypeParameter in favor of UnionType – #111
  • Introduce ArrayType – #112
  • Change {Method&Constructor}Declaration.throws to be ClassOrInterfaceType

• Grammar enhancements

  • No conditionals as left-hand side of assignements – #109
  • Type annotations fixes – #107