External DSLs with Eclipse Xtext

Xtext is a powerful framework for textual domain specific languages (DSLs) and is part of the Eclipse Modeling Project. The session will be a combination of short talks and exercises to gather hands on experience with Xtext. The participants will learn how to define their own textual DSL by means of a grammar in the EBNF-like Xtext notation and then use the Xtext generator to automatically generate a parser, an EMF metamodel and a rich-featured Eclipse based text editor. This editor will be used to define models that serve as the input of a simple code generator for the targeted domain or platform. In the remaining time, we will show how to refine the editor's features and how to integrate Xtext with other EMF models. We conclude the workshop with an outlook on the next version of Xtext.