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Xtext Vs. Antlr [message #1801263]

Wed, 16 January 2019 02:31

P J

Messages: 64
Registered: October 2018

Member

Hi,

Can you please let me know in which instances is is best to choose Xtext to generate a DSL instead of ANTLR?
I have worked with a project that involves generating a .jar file from Xtext, and I know that ANTLR does not support generating binaries as such.
How do I explain it technically? What are the other advantages of using Xtext over ANTLR?

Regards!

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Re: Xtext Vs. Antlr [message #1801275 is a reply to message #1801263]

Wed, 16 January 2019 05:59

Christian Dietrich

Messages: 13071
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

I don't understand

Antlr gives you a parser

Xtext gives you semantic validation, generator, ide

Need professional support for Xtext, Xpand, EMF?
Go to: https://www.itemis.com/en/xtext/
Twitter : @chrdietrich
Blog : https://www.dietrich-it.de

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Re: Xtext Vs. Antlr [message #1801288 is a reply to message #1801263]

Wed, 16 January 2019 08:32

Karsten Thoms

Messages: 687
Registered: July 2009
Location: Dortmund, Germany

Senior Member

As Christian said, ANTLR "only" provides a parser for you. Nothing what you can and have to do *with* the parser. Xtext adds a complete sophisticated infrastructure on top of that and *uses* ANTLR for parsing under the hood. There are some cases where you could leverage ANTLR features which Xtext does not reveal, and Xtext uses ANTLR 3.

In general, Xtext is the way to go unless you have some very specific language requirements that you cannot solve with Xtext easily (and with ANTLR neither). Then you should rethink your language's design or decide to go the hard way and implement everything on top on your own (editor support, build infrastructure etc.). You should consider that Xtext is developing since more than 10 years on that.

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Re: Xtext Vs. Antlr [message #1801297 is a reply to message #1801288]

Wed, 16 January 2019 09:44

Ed Willink

Messages: 6440
Registered: July 2009

Senior Member

Hi

As well as magic things like an almost free IDE, Xtext also provides powerful EMF integration that is very useful internally and may also enables the grammar to be for other modelling purposes.

Regards

Ed Willink

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