[CZT-Devel] Re: GnAST and other Z tools of CZT

[Petra M. <pe...@cs...>]

Hi Leo,

Leo Freitas wrote:
> I am developing a XML-Schema to represent Circus, a language that 
> combines CSP
> and Z, and I would like to try to use GnAST on this XML-schema.

Nice!
I am very interested in having a look at your Schema.
Are you extending our ZML XML Schema?
Perhaps we can set up a subproject of CZT for Circus
if you are willing to put your code under the GPL license.

> Are you aware of when GnAST and other tools such as the
> Z-Parser/Typechecker will be available in the CZT distributtion?

GnAST is not designed to generate classes from arbitrary XML Schemas.
There are many restrictions on the XML Schema, which are not documented, 
and the error messages provided by GnAST are probably not very helpful 
either. That's why we are not planning to release GnAST in the near future.

However, the source code of GnAST is available in CVS (you should really 
try to get used to CVS; it is worth the effort).
The easiest thing would probably be to send your Schema to me and I will 
try to generate classes from it.

Note that there are two sets of classes and interfaces. There are the 
classes generated by GnAST located in packages 
net.sourceforge.czt.<subproject>.ast
net.sourceforge.czt.<subproject>.impl and
net.sourceforge.czt.<subproject>.visitor.
And there are JAXB (https://jaxb.dev.java.net/) generated classes 
located in package
net.sourceforge.czt.<subproject>.jaxb.gen.
Of course, you can try JAXB on your XML Schema without using GnAST.

The JAXB classes are used to read and write XML, and GnAST also 
generates visitors that can transform a tree of JAXB classes into a tree 
of GnAST generated classes and the other way round.

I hope that GnAST becomes obsolete in the near future as tools like JAXB 
get more and more customizable, making it possible to generate exactly 
the classes we want.

Hope that helps,
Petra