Building

Getting the source

To use Arden2ByteCode, first download or clone the source.

• Using Eclipse:
  1. Copy the following URL into your clipboard (ctrl + c): https://github.com/PLRI/arden2bytecode.git
  2. In Eclipse go to File ⇒ Import… ⇒ Projects from Git ⇒ Clone URI. The fields should automatically contain the URL you copied, so click Next.
  3. Select the master branch and click Next again.
  4. On this page enter a location for the repository and check Clone submodules if you also want to download the examples submodule. Then Click Next.
  5. Choose Import existing Eclipse projects and click Next.
  6. Select the arden2bytecode project and click Finish.
  7. The project should now be imported and opened on the left side of your Eclipse IDE window (Package Explorer).

• Using the command line
  You can clone the source and the submodule with the examples, with Git as follows:
  git clone --recursive https://github.com/PLRI/arden2bytecode.git

• Downloading the files
  Alternatively, you can download a zipball or tarball from the following URLs:
  Zipball: https://github.com/PLRI/arden2bytecode/zipball/master
  Tarball: https://github.com/PLRI/arden2bytecode/tarball/master
  Extract the files to a directory of your choice.
  You can also import these files in Eclipse via File ⇒ Import… ⇒ Existing Projects into Workspace.

Building the source

Now that you got the source, you can build (compile) it. You first need to generate the parser using the SableCC parser generator. There are 2 different ways to build it:

• Using Eclipse (recommended)
  1. Build the project by selecting it in the Package Explorer and then choosing Project ⇒ Build project from the Eclipse menu.
  2. On the first build you need to refresh the Project (F5), so Eclipse finds the downloaded dependencies.
• Using Apache Ant
  Ant is a command-line utility mainly used to compile Java programs like Arden2ByteCode.
  1. First of all, you need to have ant installed and the binary being in the path of your environment.
  2. Further, you need a Java Development Kit of at least version 7 to be able to compile the Java Sources.
  3. Using the command line, switch to the project directory (build.xml should be located in that directory).
  4. Type ant, to start the compile procedure.
  5. The compiled Java program should now reside in subdirectory bin/ of the source tree.

Both will automatically call the “sableCC” target in the build.xml and generate the .java files for the parser in the packages analysis, lexer, node, parser. This can take some time, but will only happen if the .java files do not exist or are out-of-date.

When the input grammar is changed, you will need to regenerate the parser. Before regenerating the parser, you should call the “clean” target (Project ⇒ Clean… in the Eclipse menu or ant clean using the command line) to ensure there aren’t any old files left behind.

Creating distributable files

To create a JAR package file and helper scripts to launch it, call the jar target in the build.xml:

• Using Eclipse
  1. Open the build.xml.
  2. Look for the Outline view on the right. If it is not there, open it with Window ⇒ Show View ⇒ Outline.
  3. Right-click on the jar target in the outline and select Run As ⇒ Ant Build.
• Using the command line
  1. Switch to the project directory (build.xml should be located in that directory).
  2. Type ant jar.

The distributable files will be built in the in the dist/ subdirectory.

To create distributable .tar.gz and .zip files which contain MLM examples, the JAR file and launch scripts, call the dist target.

Launching Arden2ByteCode

Having built the source or a JAR file you can now launch the Arden2ByteCode compiler.

• Launching the class-files
  1. On the command line switch to the project directory.
  2. Enter run.bat -r <Path to an MLM-File> (Windows) or ./run.sh -r <Path to an MLM-File> (Linux, MacOS).
     E.g. ./run.sh -r resource/examples/hello_world.mlm
• Launching the JAR file
  You can also launch the .jar binary package as explained in Installation.
  1. Switch to dist/ subdirectory.
  2. Type arden2bytecode -r <Path to an MLM-File> (Windows) or ./arden2bytecode -r <Path to an MLM-File> (Linux, MacOS) on the command line to run it.

More information about using the compiler is given in the Command Line Options wiki page.