CodeWorker is a versatile open source parsing tool and a source code generator devoted to generative programming.
Generative programming is a software engineering approach interested in automating the production of tailor-made, adaptable, reliable and reusable IT systems.
In layman`s terms, CodeWorker lets you generate code by parsing existing languages, or by creating and parsing your own language. Once a language file has been parsed, CodeWorker provides several techniques for generating code.
CodeWorker`s scripting language drives the parsing and source code generation process. The scripting language syntax is derived from the C family of languages, making it familiar to most programmers.
The template syntax is like JSP, ASP, or Velocity. It has variations for parsing, code generation, or procedural programming, giving the developer a number of options for organizing CodeWorker projects.
CodeWorker can be trained to parse almost any language and provides two distinct methods for creating parsers:
· The extended-BNF notation is declarative, and is a derivative of BNF (the Backus-Naur Form defines the grammar of a language) extended with regular expressions, predefined non-terminals and useful directives. Something close to javacc or to ANTLR in the JAVA world except a separate parser class is not necessary with CodeWorker. This means that parsing scripts can be tested without having to compile a separate parser class.
· Reading tokens is procedural and a somewhat obsolete now that CodeWorker handles BNF parsing scripts smoothly.
CodeWorker can parse a language and use the resulting parse tree to generate source code via template-based scripts. One example is database DDL (Database Definition Language). CodeWorker has been used to parse DDL and generate large portions of a Java application.
CodeWorker`s source code generation can occur in three ways: generation, expansion or translation.
