[tigerstripe-dev] Annotating module artifacts; and annotations in module

[Andrey Platov <andrey@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Gentlemen,

We discussed TAF + Tigerstripe modules with Yuri, let me please share some thoughts (since I'm spelling English a little bit faster :)).

First, let's separate two scenarios, which are very different in our understanding:

1. Annotate artifacts in modules.

This means we shall have a possibility to annotate files/classes/etc contained in the modules as they were in the workspace (annotations will be stored in local .ann files or anywhere using normal routing approach). This scenario may be implemented without any changes to the framework using existing resource URIs and supported schemes (resource, class, tigerstripe). The only requirement is that artifacts in the module will be accessible to Eclipse using corresponding APIs (Resource, Java model, Tigerstripe) as they were in the workspace. This is definitely doable in many ways, for example to make artifacts in modules available as Eclipse 'IResource's we may employ Eclipse File System (EFS) http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/EFS . To make Java classes visible to JDT we may add module on Java classpath, combine both approaches for complex module structure, etc.

So the idea for scenario (1) is to make arifacts in modules transparently visible to Eclipse/Tigerstripe as this artifacts located in workspace normally. To use existing TAF features (and I hope more other benefits for Tigerstripe in general).

Please update us if you already have EFS implemeted? (Yuri reported that Tigerstripe can navigate inside modules but he did not dig deeper to understand at which level this is done).

This is proposed clear solution for scenario 1, please update us if we did not missed something. Taking "annotate resource in module as an example we'll have":

Project
- tsmodule.zip
-- resource.txt (inside zip)

If module content available through EFS as regular eclipse resource, URI for resource.txt will be resource:/Project/tsmodule.zip/resource (or whatever Tigerstripe EFS will provide), so it could be transparently annotated by the framework.

2. R/O Annotations inside the module

Following Eric's comments at https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=244843 it definitely looks like we need to transform annotation files to change annotation scheme. Proposed solution, which assumes that scenario #1 is implemented (transparent access to module content):

a) To stay conceptualy complete (and keep all the annotations in moudle including resource:, java:, etc) I'd like to extend Eric's proposal with preserving original scheme, so during module export process URIs of form:

scheme:/Project/etc... will be replaced with tigerstripe_module:ModuleID:scheme:/etc or tigerstripe_module:scheme:/ModuleID/etc, which is more hierarchical.

In the example above URI to resource.txt will be tigerstripe_module:tsmodule_ID:resource:/resource.txt (or tigerstripe_module:resource:/tsmodule_ID/resource.txt)

b) If #1 is done, and after module added to a project, TAF will normally register .ann files with the annotation database (they looks like normal Eclipse resources due to #1). Also to resolve Eric's "multiple-identical' entries case https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=244843#c3 we need to extend this process with refcounting based on module id, which do not looks to be a problem

c) The last thing: understanding tigerstripe_module:XXX annotations

I believe we can easily do this using EMF's URIConverter feature. With TAF ResourceSet we will register URIConverter, which will simple map tigerstripe_module-profixed URIs back to original. To do this propoerly we need to know at least one project where module is located, and fortunately we know it, and maintain a list of such projects at phase (b) - to ensure that added annotations database only once per concrete module.

Proposed above looks like a solution to support annotations for modules in true fashion with minimal TAF changes. Probably we missed something, which can break this picture. So we're anxiously waiting for your thoughts, and would be happy to talk on this at the meeting.

Thank you, and
Kind Regards,
Andrey