4.2 The AS Centaur-Environment

This   section describes the AS-specific part of the Centaur-environment. For general information about using a Centaur editor, please refer to the Centaur Manual.

We suggest, as it is usually done in Centaur, to put the specification of a new language Foo in a directory named .../Foo/syntax.

The command ``centaur-language'' can be used as usual. In this case, all the files (but the one named Foo.rdb) in the syntax directory can be removed.

4.2.1 Compiling a New Specification

The AS-environment pop-up menu contains four entries.

  

Check

Call the type-checker

Compile to LL

Compile the specification into Lisp code for creating a Centaur formalism

Compile to Eclipse

Compile the specification into prolog code for Typol execution with Eclipse

Write Code

Write the generated code into files.

After writing an AS specification, one have to type-check it. If some error occur, the source file must be modified in consequence and re-type-checked until no error occurs. Then you are ready for generating object code. Centaur users must generate code both for Lisp and Prolog. The code that as been generated must then be written down. The generated files will be written in the same directory as the source file.

4.2.2 Getting Help in Case of Errors or Warnings

The   AS environment experiments a new way of helping the Centaur user. Each message produced in the error window contains an hyper-link to the HTML form of this documentation.

Assuming that a Netscape WEB browser is running in the X user's environment, clicking on a message with the right button will ask Netscape to show the corresponding part of the manual. The Netscape browser must be running before trying to get help. Its window will pop up to show the manual. Be sure that this window can be visible on your screen.

If necessary, the following resources may be modified.

*as.MessageModules.typechecker.*.Help-action:  \
                                #:message-help:netscape
*as.MessageModules.typechecker.*.Help-root: app
*as.MessageModules.typechecker.*.Help-location: \
                  clf/as/doc/as_manual/typechecker.html

4.2.3 Using an AS-defined Formalism in the Centaur Environment

When   a new formalism has been created using AS, some resources must be updated to make it accessible by Centaur. Some of these resources may have been already created using the ``centaur-language'' command (See the Centaur documentation).

Assuming   a new formalism Foo, the .centaur.rdb file must contains the following resources:

Centaur.Formalism: (... Foo ...)
?.Foo*Root: user
?.Foo.Database.Location: .../Foo.rdb

The main resource file for Foo must contain the following resources:

?.Foo.Location: Foo/syntax
?.Foo.Mode: std
?.Foo.LoadFunction: #:as:load-a-formalism

Note that the last resource is not generated by the ``centaur-language'' command.

You   can either restart a new Centaur, or use the ``Reset Resources'' then the ``Load Formalism'' buttons to take your new formalism into account.

4.2.4 Modifying a Specification

When   a specification has been modified and the objects files regenerated as explained above, one must either restart a new Centaur or use the ``Load Formalism'' button. In the last case, this will not reload the formalism into Prolog if Typol has already used this formalism. The simpler way to insure that Prolog get the same version of your formalism as Centaur is to restart a new Prolog server, using the following command in the Lisp top-level window.

({prolog}:direct "halt")