Code Generation with M2T's Xpand

Bernd Kolb (Independent), Markus Voelter (Independent)

Modeling · Long Talk
Presentation
Wednesday, 15:30, 50 minutes | Grand Ballroom GHAB |

Bernd Kolb

Markus Voelter

This session is an introduction to writing robust and scalable code generators using M2T's Xpand language. We show the basics of the language as well as several best practices and advanced features. These include the use of extension functions to factor out complex expression that are reused at several locatios in the templates. We also show how to use template aspects to build variants of existing templates without invasively changing the original templates definitions. This allows the adaptation of existing generators (such as the one in GMF) to your own needs. Finally, we will look at the tool support that is available for integrating generated and manually written code. The session shows how to generate code from EMF and UML2 models, and explains how to integrate code generation into a modeling workflow defined with the Eclipse Modeling Workflow Engine.

Bernd Kolb focuses on model-driven software development and eclipse technologies. As a consultant he worked in different domains from tooling for automotive embedded systems to enterprise Java applications. Bernd is committer at the Eclipse M2T and EMFT Projects as well as component Lead for the Modeling Workflow Engine (MWE). He is a regular speaker at conferences and has written a number of articles as well as co-authored a book on OSGi.

Markus Völter works as an independent consultant and coach for software technology and engineering. He focuses on software architecture, model-driven software development and product lines. Markus is the author of several magazine articles, patterns and books on middleware and model-driven software development. He is a regular speaker at conferences world wide. Markus can be reached at voelter at acm dot org via or www.voelter.de