Simple syntax
Benefit
Syntax designed for Acceleo is the result of many years of experience in code generation field. This syntax was created with the following goals in mind :
- To be simple and natural
- To be short and easy-to-learn
- To be close to developers / architects habits
- To be dedicated to code generation from models
- To be strict and well formated
- To be open and extensible
Number of keywords was reduced to the minimum in order to get a generation tool as transparent as possible and to focus on targetted code and metamodel browsing.
How does it work ?
A model is a data tree : each element is nested in a higher element. This particular charactistic is used by Acceleo to make transparent the complexity of tree navigation. Then, all complex cases of model tree browsing vanish :
- automatic list management
- automatic null or empty elements management
- automatic dynamic associations management
Syntax provides simple control elements such as conditional statements, loops, imports declaration, ...
Use case
Example of simple template using Acceleo syntax
Some artwork comes from the Oxygen icon set, sources are available on the svn.