What is the role of ClassOutline / JClass / CClass in CodeModel?

Question

My question concerns writing JAXB plugins, in particular JAXB codemodel.

What is the role of ClassOutline (and it's companions) and JClass (and companions) and CClass (and companions)? When looking at the list of classes in corresponding packages it is not clear what is chicken and what is egg.

My interpretation is that CClass (CPropertyInfo, CEnumConstant, ...) are created by XJC at first draft parsing of XSD. Then some magic happens and this model is transformed into JClass (JFieldVar, JEnumConstant, ...) and during this transformation customizations are applied. Afterwards plugins are invoked. ClassOutline is used as a bridge between these two models. Altogether looks very complicated.

With these parallel models I believe that the same information can be derived in several ways. For example, class field type:

• JClass#fields() → JFieldVar#type → JType
• CClassInfo#getProperties() → CPropertyInfo#baseType → JType

I am looking for verbose explanation of the lifecycle of above mentioned models. Thanks.

Answer 1

(This is to answer your further questions.)

Yes, it is possible to check customizations. Here is a class I am using to access customizations.

The trick is that reference properties don't have own customizations, customizations are placed in the referenced element properties.

public static CCustomizations getCustomizations(
        final CPropertyInfo propertyInfo) {

    final CCustomizations main = new CCustomizations(
            propertyInfo.getCustomizations());

    final Collection<CCustomizations> elementCustomizations = propertyInfo
            .accept(new CPropertyVisitor<Collection<CCustomizations>>() {
                public Collection<CCustomizations> onAttribute(
                        CAttributePropertyInfo info) {
                    return Collections.emptyList();
                }

                public Collection<CCustomizations> onElement(
                        CElementPropertyInfo arg0) {
                    return Collections.emptyList();
                }

                public Collection<CCustomizations> onReference(
                        CReferencePropertyInfo info) {

                    final List<CCustomizations> elementCustomizations = new ArrayList<CCustomizations>(
                            info.getElements().size());

                    for (CElement element : info.getElements()) {
                        if (!(element instanceof CElementInfo && ((CElementInfo) element)
                                .hasClass())) {
                            elementCustomizations.add(element
                                    .getCustomizations());
                        }
                    }

                    return elementCustomizations;
                }

                public Collection<CCustomizations> onValue(
                        CValuePropertyInfo arg0) {
                    return Collections.emptyList();
                };

            });

    CCustomizations customizations = main;

    for (CCustomizations e : elementCustomizations) {
        main.addAll(e);
    }

    return customizations;
}

I'd say [email protected] is a good place for such discussions.