JastAdd2 Release Notes

2.1.6 - 2013-11-29

Performance

• JastAdd now inlines all equation compute methods where the equation is a single Java expression.

• JastAdd uses a new inherited equation checking analysis that runs quicker on grammars with many inherited attributes. This can reduce JastAdd compile times for large projects.

Stability

• Fixed potential crash during refinement processing.

Command-Line Interface

• JastAdd now reports a warning if multiple values are given to an option that only accepts one value argument.

Code Generation

• JastAdd now generates the trace class as the nested class ASTNode$State.Trace. The global Trace instance is accessed using the method ASTNode$State.trace().

• Added the ASTNode.treeCopyNoTransform() method to replace ASTNode.fullCopy(), deprecating fullCopy.

• Added the ASTNode.doFullTraversal() method which uses getChild() to traverse the subtree and trigger rewrites.

• Added the ASTNode.treeCopy() method which uses doFullTraversal() to trigger rewrites before copying the tree with treeCopyNoTransform().

Flushing

• JastAdd now supports a flush flag which allows for configuring of flushing. The flag takes the following values: attr, coll, rewrite, full. Default is attr and coll. The rewrite value makes flushing of outermost rewrites possible by storing their initial values. The full value includes all values.

• The default flushing API provided by JastAdd has been extended with a flushTreeCache() method calling flushCache() and traversing the tree. A call to this method together with the use of the flush=full will result in a full flush of an AST.

• Attributes are flushed via separate reset methods, one per cache attribute.

• All cached attributes in a node are flushed from a flushAttrCache() method which is called from flushCache().

• Rewrites are flushed from a flushRewriteCache() method which is called from flushCache().

2.1.5 - 2013-09-17

Tracing & Caching

• Added support for static configuration of tracer events via the --tracing flag. The flag can now be given a comma separated list of event categories to be generated. Accepted values are compute,cache,rewrite,circular, and copy. All events are generated by default.

• Added support for a --cache flag taking one of the following values: all, none, config, implicit, and analyze. This flag provides a global cache configuration, replacing local configuration with the lazy keyword. The config and implicit values use a .config file to provide a cache configuration on attribute level. The analyze value uses tracing together with full caching to analyze caching behavior and to compute a cache configuration via the CacheAnalyzer class.

• The Ant task jastadd.JastAddTask now prints a deprecation warning. The classname org.jastadd.JastAddTask should be used instead.

Command-line Interface

• JastAdd now requires at least one grammar file (.ast) given on the command line.

• If there is any problem in the JastAdd configuration, JastAdd no longer prints the full help text. A single line is printed describing how to get more help. This avoids the problem of the help text drowning out error messages.

• Undeprecated the --visitCheck option (will replace --noVisitCheck in the future by adding a boolean argument)

• Undeprecated the --cacheCycle option (will replace --noCacheCycle in the future by adding boolean argument)

2.1.4 - 2013-09-04

• Fixed regression in version 2.1.3 that caused the generated Tracer class to always be generated in the default package. If it is generated, the Tracer class is now generated in the same package as the rest of the AST.

• The generated methods clone, copy, and fullCopy can now be refined just like regular aspect methods.

• The undocumented sons declaration is now deprecated. This feature did not actually alter code generation in any way, but was still used in for example JastAddJ. If the JastAdd parser encounters such a declaration it now generates a warning.

• JastAdd no longer requires an implicit root node in the AST grammar. A root node is a non-abstract node that can not be a child of any other node type. Root nodes are still required for collection attributes, so if you use a collection attribute with a grammar that lacks an implicit root node, you must declare the root node in the attribute declaration.

2.1.3 - 2013-08-27

• The warning messages for missing inherited equations have been improved by including an example AST path that lacks an equation for the attribute.

  An example of the new warning messages: "missing inherited equation for attribute attr in class Expr when being child of X (path: Program->C->X->Expr)"

• JastAdd no longer generates the Tracer class when the --tracing option is absent.

• Disabled the generation of an unused interface named Filter. This interface was generated by the previous version of JastAdd as a side-effect of how the Tracer class was generated.

2.1.2 - 2013-08-26

Newly Deprecated

• Interface Modifiers: JastAdd strips all modifiers from interface declarations. This stripping of access modifiers is probably an unintentional error in the parser.

  In future versions of JastAdd the interface modifiers will be retained in the generated code. Unfortunately if incorrect modifiers are given to an interface declaration in an aspect, then the generated code will fail to compile.

  Note that the protected, private and static modifiers are only allowed on member interfaces (declared inside an enclosing class). Top-level interface declarations should not use protected, private, or static.

  JastAdd now prints warning messages for each interface declaration that has any modifiers. Check that your interfaces use correct modifiers to ensure that your code continues to compile even with future JastAdd versions.

• Type Declaration Modifiers: In addition to the stripping of modifiers from interface declarations JastAdd alters the modifiers of class and interface declarations by removing any occurrence of static and adding the public modifier if the modifier list was empty.

  We want to remove this behaviour from JastAdd, so a new warning message is generated for all type declarations where the implicit public modifier is added. The message warns that future versions of JastAdd will cease to make the class public automatically. To silence the warning, simply add public or protected modifiers to the declaration.

• SuppressWarnings: JastAdd no longer generates @SuppressWarnings annotations. The purpose of using the annotation was to reduce the number of Java warnings in the generated code - however JastAdd was not smart enough to correctly use the annotation, and if the annotation is incorrectly used it will raise another warning. Ideally the number of warnings should be reduced by generating better code instead.

  The --suppressWarnings flag, and corresponding JastAddTask option, has been deprecated and will be removed from JastAdd in a future release.

Improvements and Additions

• Renaming ASTNode, List, Opt: New options have been added to JastAdd that allow renaming the generated ASTNode, List and Opt classes. The names can be specified using the following command-line flags (corresponding options for the Ant task are also available):

  • --ASTNode=<NewName> ASTNode will be named "NewName"
  • --List=<NewName> List will be named "NewName"
  • --Opt=<NewName> Opt will be named "NewName"

• Annotations: Annotations are now supported for synthesized attributes and aspect-declared classes and interfaces!

  Annotations on attributes are allowed before the attribute keyword (syn, eq). For synthesized attributes the annotation is generated on the method with the same name - not the "compute" method. Annotations are not yet supported for other kinds of attributes although they should now produce more readable error messages rather than standard mysterious parser syntax errors.

• Tracing: Attribute evaluation tracing is now done in-memory by the generated class Tracer.

• Comments: Fixed several issues with comments in the generated code:

  • fixed indentation issues
  • fixed double unparsing of documentation comments
  • removed redundant empty line after comments
  • removed incorrectly generated @ast method tag

• JastAdd now generates the utility method List.addAll(Collection) which can be used to initialize an AST List with a set of children.

• List components now get a "has" accessor which returns true if the list component is non-empty.

• Added flag --lineColumnNumbers which makes JastAdd generate methods to get and set start- and end positions for AST nodes. This can be used with version 1.0.2 and later of JastAddParser (by passing --no-beaver-symbol to JastAddParser) to remove the need of having beaver.Symbol as a supertype of ASTNode when Beaver is used as the parser generator. See the JastAddParser documentation for further details.

Internal Changes

• The syntax for annotating collection attributes has been slightly changed. Annotations are now only allowed before the coll keyword, rather than after. The supported annotations for collection attributes are not discussed in the documentation, so we don't expect this change to affect anyone. It is possible that these annotations will disappear in the future anyway - use at your own peril!

• Generated source files have been moved to the package org.jastadd

• The build script now compiles to ant-bin in order to avoid conflicts with the eclipse project

2.1.1 - 2013-07-29

Bugfixes

• Fixed error that could cause fullCopy to initialize NTA children with incorrect child indices.
• The JastAdd Ant Task now throws a BuildException if JastAdd failed to generate an AST instead of silently terminating the Ant build.
• Fixed potential null access in generated code.

Other

• Added a new List constructor that takes a variable number of children and inserts them into the list.
• Improved analysis and error handling of inherited attributes.
• JastAdd2 now uses a new version numbering system.

R20130412

General

• Added option for indentation type in the JastAdd Ant Task
• Moved JastAdd main class to the package org.jastadd (but left a deprecated class with the same name as a working entry point for backward compatibility)
• Removed global static variables to allow concurrent JastAdd instances in the same JVM
• Added JastAdd entry points that allow custom output/error streams

Error handling

• Help text is printed to the standard out stream rather than the standard error stream
• Improved error handling for missing equations of synthesized attributes: now only the minimum set of classes requiring an equation is reported

Performance

• Minimum list size now only affects List nodes (previously also affected Opt nodes)
• It is now possible to specify a custom minimum list size with the minListSize option

R20130312

Incremental evaluation

• Merged Emma Söderberg's incremental evaluation features into JastAdd2
• The new option fullFlush was added to enable more thorough flush behaviour (makes flushCache flush rewrites and NTAs)

Removed obsolete features

• Dropped doxygen support
• Dropped J2ME code generation support
• Dropped parent interface support (for inherited equation searching)

Internals

• Much of the JastAdd2 internals have been rewritten to improve readability

R20130212

Bug fixes

• Fixed bug concerning weaving interface refinements
• Fixed various bugs
• Fixed a code generation error in jjtree mode

Error handling

• Multiple equivalent declarations of an inherited attribute now only raise a warning, rather than an error
• The warning for a duplicate inherited declaration includes the previous declaration location
• Improved error messages for method/equation refinement errors
• The path to the output directory is included in the error message for a missing output directory

API changes

• ASTNode.copy() now sets the parent pointer of the copy to null
• Removed the redundant static method ASTNode.getChild(ASTNode,int)

Performance

• Removed redundant NTA child initialization
• Increased minimum (non-empty) child array size from 1 to 4
• The child array for non-List, non-Opt nodes is now initialized to fit all children in the node constructor (removes redundant child-array growing)

Other changes

• JastAdd2 no longer depends on AspectJ
• The --doxygen option is now deprecated
• Added the --indent command-line option which allows changing the indentation in generated code. Can be set to tabs or 2-, 4-, and 8 space indentation.

R20121112

Bugfix Release

• Fixed error in fullCopy causing some non-NTA children to not be copied correctly. This bug sometimes caused NullPointerExceptions or faulty behaviour in generated code.

R20121112

Bugfix Release

• Fixed error in fullCopy causing some non-NTA children to not be copied correctly. This bug sometimes caused NullPointerExceptions or faulty behaviour in generated code.

R20121026

Various bug fixes

• Fixed bug on Windows - backslashes in file paths now work correctly.
• NTA children are no longer copied by fullCopy.
• Removed the generated method for accessing value maps of parameterized attributes.
• Fixed error related to two synthesized attributes with the same name but different parameters.
• It is now possible to use static import statements in aspect files.
• Added a method getNumXNoTransform to count the number of elements in a list child without triggering rewrites.

R20121011

Various bug fixes

• getChild now returns null if the children array is null
• inherited equations lacking a return statement now give compilation error
• improved recognition of the "refined" keyword inside Java code in equations.
• Synthesized NTA with parameters may now have null values
• fullCopy now sets the parent of the copied tree to null
• insertChild and removeChild now update the childIndex field correctly
• Fixed how debug code escapes file names, to work also for Windows OS.
• Fixed bug in code generation for Contributes-clauses without when-part.
• Circular attributes now generate Java 1.4 code when the java1.4 option is set.

Improved output handling

• Error messages, warnings, and help messages are now printed on stderr instead of on stdout.
• JastAdd now returns exit code zero when just printing version or help information.

Improved option handling

• The options --noComponentCheck, --lazyMaps, and --refineLegacy are now by default ON when running from the command line.
• The default behavior is now the same when running from the command line as when running through ANT.
• Command line options are no longer case sensitive.
• Some options are deprecated. A warning is printed if such an option is used.
• Warnings are printed for some other cases, like giving an option twice, giving an option without an expected argument, etc.

R20110902

JavaDoc support

• JastAdd now generates Java files with JavaDoc comments for built-in APIs and APIs for attributes. See the upcoming RagDoll tool for more information.

JDK7 compliance

• Code generated by older versions of JastAdd might give compile time errors when compiling using javac from JDK 7. This is because JastAdd previously generated code where private fields were accessed in an erroneous way according to the JLS. Previous javac versions accepted such code, but the bug has been fixed in JDK 7. This version of JastAdd generates code not giving this problem.