Re: [java-gnome-hackers] "First block in defs file didn't describe a type"

[Andrew C. <an...@op...>]

On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 22:48 +0200, Alexander Boström wrote:
> Not sure if this should go to -developers, but anyway, my question:

Sure, this is the right place if you're hacking on the library, and I'd
say that messing around with the code generator is hacking on the
library :)

> What should I make of the following, when compiling java-gnome? Is it
> normal?
> 
>         /usr/bin/java -client -ea -Djava.awt.headless=true -classpath tmp/generator/ BindingsGenerator

oooh running the code generator by hand. :) That's rare, unless you're
working on the code generator itself. But yes:

>         Couldn't get sufficient information from src/defs/GtkRcScanner.defs:
>         First block in defs file didn't describe a type
>         [continuing next file]

etc

is entirely normal. You'll get the same output if you run

$ rm tmp/stamp/generator
$ V=1 make

for obvious reasons in the normal build we discard those warnings.

> It looks bad but the resulting library seems to work.

It's all the places where the input data wasn't correctly formed by the
narrow definition of what the code generator can parse and/or expects.

When we were writing the thing it was a case of teaching it to handle
more and more of the input set, so you can imagine why it is the way it
is. Ideally we don't want it to warn at all. The goal would be to fix
the .defs data (easy) and/or the code generator (hard) to the point
where nothing generates such warnings. 

[it's hard because often the things that we don't handle require
significant design and engineering work; the case of function pointers
being a one example that we happily just avoided]

AfC
Melbourne

-- 
Andrew Frederick Cowie | Consulting Engineer | Operational Dynamics
☏ +61 4 1079 6725 | ✍ +1 646 472 5054 | ♖ http://www.operationaldynamics.com