[news.eclipse.tools.jdt] Re: Error Checking as you type

[Maarten Bodewes <please@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan Morgan wrote:
> Hey,
>
> Could someone tell me what is happening in the background to enable the JDT 
> to generate errors and warnings while someone is typing ?
> I have looked around for some documentation on this but have as yet been 
> unable to find any.
>
> I suspect that the file is being parsed for syntax and lexical problems as 
> keystrokes are received but I need to confirm this.
Yes, it has it's own parser. It should not be that difficult to find any 
information on it. The Java syntax has been kept rather simple by Sun, 
both to keep the language easy to read, as well as to support tools like 
Eclipse. Now that old decission is paying off big time.

It keeps a parse tree next to the source files in memory, anything you 
type gets put in the parse tree, with a (rather) short delay. It's one 
thing that is missing in .NET (2003) - and it's not only usefull for 
syntax checking but also for GUI builders, refactoring, UML tool support 
- the list goes on.

The good thing is that you can still type the source files as if you 
were using a normal editor. One of the big tricks is to use the 
parser/generator without pissing off experienced programmers (like me).

Maarten