LionWeb-CSharp 0.2.4-rc.5

README

This project contains the C# implementation of (parts of) the LionWeb specification. Specifically supported are:

• language definition through the LionCore M3 meta-metamodel,
• serialization and deserialization of both languages and instances of those conforming to the LionWeb JSON serialization format,
• a generic, dynamic/reflective base implementation of nodes,
• C# type generation.

For convenience, the UML representation of the LionCore M3 meta-metamodel, including the separate LionCore built-ins language, is reproduced here:

The LionCore built-ins language contains several classifiers (=instances of Classifier, so reside on the M2-level because they don't admit a self-definition) that can be used within any language definition. These specifically are

• the INamed interface – because many concepts have a "name" property,
• the generic Node concept – to use as the type of the target(s) of an untyped reference relation,
• the four built-in primitive types.

Project organization

Various aspects of LionWeb are represented as directories at the top-level of this project.

• Core/:
  • base types, including Node, a generic, dynamic/reflective implementation of INode, release version declaration
  • M2/: LionCore built-ins
  • M3/: implementation of the LionCore M3 to define languages with, computed properties and extension methods defined on top of those, and (de-)serialization of language definitions
  • Serialization/: implementation of (de-)serialization for the Node type, and definition of the serialization chunk format (after it's been unmarshalled from JSON)
  • Utilities/: utilities like Cloner, Comparer, or ReferenceUtils
• docs/: documentation, mainly in the form of diagrams of that as well

API

Languages

Serializing instances of Language as a LionWeb serialization chunk can be done as follows:

// serialization to internal format:
using LionWeb.Core.M1;
SerializationChunk serializationChunk = new Serializer(LionWebVersions.Current).SerializeToChunk(languages);

// serialization of internal format to JSON:
using LionWeb.Core.Serialization;
JsonUtils.WriteJsonToFile(<path>, serializationChunk);

(Also note that code in these snippets – in particular the using statements – might not be syntactically correct. Adjust before use.)

Deserializing a LionWeb serialization chunk containing one or more languages can be done as follows:

JsonUtils.ReadNodesFromStreamAsync(utf8JsonStream, new LanguageDeserializer(LionWebVersions.Current))
    .GetAwaiter()
    .GetResult()
    .Cast<Language>();

Instances

Serializing nodes (as instances of Node) can be done as follows:

JsonUtils.WriteNodesToStream(utf8JsonStream, new Serializer(LionWebVersions.Current), <nodes>)

Deserializing a LionWeb serialization chunk that's the serialization of nodes from one language can be done as follows:

/// Configure and create deserializer:
var deserializer = new DeserializerBuilder()
    .WithLanguage(<language instance>)
    .Build();

// read the JSON:
var List<IReadableNode> nodes = JsonUtils.ReadNodesFromStreamAsync(utf8JsonStream, deserializer)
    .GetAwaiter()
    .GetResult();