Hi
I'm trying to grok the changes to the PropertyHelper in order to
document them for 1.8.0 - and maybe to suggest throwing in some more
built-in delegates, but that's for a different thread.
>From what I understand:
The default PropertyHelper splits its work into several steps that can
be delegated to custom implementations. These steps are:
* finding a property reference inside a string.
The delegate interface is oata.property.PropertyExpander.
There are two built-in expanders, one that finds ${foo} positions
the parser after the '}' and says "here is property "foo"' and one
that finds $$, positions the parser after the second $ (actually at
the second $) and says "no property to be seen here".
This is the interface I'd implement if I wanted a completely
different property syntax. I'd also need to implement it if I
wanted to allow nested properties ${${foo}} since the default
PropertyExpander doesn't balance braces.
* mapping a property to a value
The delegate interface is oata.PropertyHelper.PropertyEvaluator.
There are two built-in implementations, one implements local
properties and one implements the "toString: protocol",
i.e. ${toString:some-refid} => find-reference-in-project.toString()
This is the interface I'd implement if I
- want to provide a different "protocol" like toString:
- want to provide a different storage for properties, this would be
the reading part of it.
"Normal" project properties are not implemented via
PropertyEvaluator but implemented via fallback mechanisms in the
default PropertyHelper implementation.
PropertyEvaluator can return Object but it will be turned into a
String unless the whole string that was expanded is consumed by the
property (i.e. "${foo}" can become an Object while "${foo} bar" van
not).
PropertyEvaluator can return an instance of the magical
oata.property.NullReturn class which means "I really really mean it
when I say the property expands to null" because simply returning
null means "I don't know this property".
* storing the value for a property somewhere
The delegate interface is oata.PropertyHelper.PropertySetter.
The only built-in implementation is for local properties.
This is the interface I'd implement if I
- want to provide a different storage for properties, this would be
the writing part of it.
"Normal" project properties are not implemented via
PropertySetter but implemented via fallback mechanisms in the
default PropertyHelper implementation.
PropertySetter returns a flag indicating whether it has consumed the
property - otherwise the other delegates are consulted and
ultimately the fallback to project properties is used.
The <properthelper> task can be used to register custom delegates.
Delegates are used in LIFO order that is custom delegates are able to
override built-in delegates.
Is this correct and somewhat complete (Matt?)?
Stefan
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