Techniques Enabling Generator Refactoring

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method combining refactoring and code generation, allowing automatic adaptation of both generated classes and generators through a template-based approach embedded in source code comments.

Contribution

It presents a novel technique where code generation templates are defined as compilable source code with embedded directives, enabling automatic refactoring of generators.

Findings

Prototype demonstrates automatic generator adaptation

Template defined as compilable source code with embedded directives

Refactoring techniques applied to both classes and generators

Abstract

This paper presents our approach to use refactoring techniques together with code generation. Refactoring is particularly useful if not only the generated classes but also the generator itself can be adapted in an automatic fashion. We have developed a simple demonstration prototype to illustrate this. The demonstration is based on a special technique where the template for the code generation is defined as compilable source code. The directives to ll out this template prototype to the actual classes are embedded in the source as comments.