Visual Studio Language Service with C# intellisense - visual-studio

Last year I wrote a Language Service for Visual Studio which added syntax highlighting for NHaml files: http://github.com/snappycode/hamleditor.
To clarify, NHaml is a html template language that can mix in code elements like an aspx file can. This plugin adds support to the IDE for editing NHaml files, but basically only adds syntax highlighting.
I was wondering if anyone knows how to add inline c# intellisense to the service like you get now in an aspx file. I'm hoping that would be possible without doing the whole c# grammar myself specific for the plugin.
Has anyone written a language service that mixes languages?
UPDATE:
It looks like the spark view engine guys have made some inroads here, I am investigating their implementation

I checked the Spark View Engine, and they seem to have made a generic ATL stuff (called SparkLanguagePackageLib), that in fact seems to be not containiag anything Spark specific. It seems to be just a generic C# intellisense library that needs the following:
The original code
The C# source that gets generated from the original code
The position mappings between the two (for example the code on line 2 pos 5 gets mapped in the output to line 4 pos 10, etc.)
Some other things, like Paintings(?)
And after that you can call:
events.OnGenerated(
primaryText, // original source code
entry.SourceCode, // generated sourcecode
cMappings, // mappings between the two
ref mappings[0], // ?
cPaints, // ?
ref paints[0]); // ?
I've tried to find Spark-specific stuff in that C++ library, but I couldn't find anything: everythig spark-related is split to a separate C# code file. I think this is good, because:
You don't need to edit the C++ files
If the spark view engine's intellisense support is installed it can be used by other view engines too
You only need to create a class, that maps between the original nhaml file and it's generated C# counterpart.
Btw. Are you still working on this NHaml Intellisense library? If not I'll try to patch their implementation in hope it can be converted to NHaml easily.

this looks like it might help
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/recipes/VSLanguageService.aspx

I finally managed to modify the code to support NHaml. It wasn't that hard at all. Unfortunately the original NHaml library doesn't support everything that was needed, so I had to create a new parser for NHaml. It doesn't support all of the constructs, but it supports most of them (enough to make NHaml programming easier)
Download: http://github.com/sztupy/nhamlsense
Screencast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jTZ2zC9eYc

You can easily add keywords by creating or modifying a usertype.dat file. Check here for some directions on attaching to specific file extentions. That might get you at least part of the way, without redoing the complete c# syntax.
(In fact, I'm not sure what you mean exactly by 'syntax highlighting' in this context. I'm sure, for instance, you get brace-match highlighting for free in the editor).

Related

Advanced code style in Clion

I want to have google-style like code style checker that would automatically run within Clion.
However, what I found as solutions (predeclared code style for google and others, direct Editor settings and EditorConfig support in Clion help) are all rather primitive. For example, I want to use snake case with final underscore for class member fileds (e.g. my_class_member_) and usual snake case for function arguments (e.g. some_argument), and none of the suggested options would do the trick as far as I am concerned. Furthermore, some politics associated with endless loops and so are to be added, which is even more context-specific.
I consider creating cpplint.py-like script for this, but it is going to be very time-consuming and is likely to be run outside Clion. Are there any elegant ways to solve my problem?
Yeah, you able to do this! Look into Clion plug-in Clion-cpplint and use with cpplint.py script, provided by Google. You will get highlights on the fly when you are editing C++ source code.
You able to install add-on through Plugins tab in settings. In the end you will get something like:

how do I create readable C++/CX document from XML generated by Visual Studio 2015

My project is written in C++/CX on VS2015 and I am seeking a way to generate API documentation.
After googling and stackoverflow, I have tried doxygen, VSDocman,NDoc, Atomineer Pro Documentation and SandCastle, I found these tools do not support C++/CX syntax, therefore, they cannot generate correct document.
I also tried to generate XML file which VS supports. But it's hard to read XML file.
How do I generate API documentation from C++/CX? Thanks for any suggestion
There are a lot of misconceptions about the C++/CX language extension. You tried too many products that have no hope of getting you anywhere. First and foremost is that it is a native C++ extension and does not generate a .NET compatible assembly. So knock out any that try to use Reflection to parse metadata. Out goes NDoc, VSDocman, Sandcastle. Atomineer is out, it is just an editor add-in.
So all you got left is doxygen.
Sure, it doesn't know about C++/CX out of the box. The FAQ points out that in order to make it compatible with a language, you need to modify src/scanner.l
Having a look at it, I see it already supports the C++/CLI extension. That's another C++ language extension that supports generating MSIL. C++/CX syntax is very close to C++/CLI. Just some minor differences, like the gcnew keyword is too misleading and replaced by ref new. But that's not the kind of syntax that doxygen cares about, it just wants to know about declarations. Those keywords are the same.
So the only obstacle I can guess at is that you just forgot to tell it about the language. It can't guess at it correctly from just the filename extension, .cpp and .h will get it to parse plain C++. Modify or add this line in the config file:
CPP_CLI_SUPPORT = YES
And tweak scanner.l if necessary.

CoffeeScript Intellisense

I use Visual Studio for development and I am quite used to Intellisense. But when writting CoffeeScript you don't really get any Syntax Checking or Intellisense.
Is there a plugin for VS that would allow this?
Thanks
You can't have more than syntax checking/coloring with coffeescript (on any IDE) AFAIK.
As an alternative, you can use TypeScript to get the full Visual Studio tooling support (and stay close to the javascript), or some transcompilers that transform code to javascript, for C# there is Saltarelle and for CIL (.NET bytecode, so compatible with any .NET language), I just found JSIL but I have no idea how well it works.
Note than the generated code "look" can be important for debugging and using external libraries get a bit of work to be included in Typed languages.
For js code readability I would recommand TypeScript (similar to coffeescript, even easier, but less powerfull as a language).
Saltarelle code looks readable (didn't tried a lot), for JSIL I have no idea.
A list of languages that compiles to JS: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS
Webstorm and all of the JetBrains IDEs recently added some code completion and refactoring support. It knows what methods are in my own classes and will prompt to complete as I type. The red squiggly underline compile as you type is not quite there yet but it is coming. I bet Webstorm is the first to implement CS source map also. They have added so much in the last 11 months.
Check this out: http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/2b96d16a-c986-4501-8f97-8008f9db141a
Here is another: http://chirpy.codeplex.com/
I think this should do what you want.

FxCop Custom Rules for Custom Controls

In my project I am using custom controls instead of normal ASP.NET controls. We have build an architecture on .NET and are using its controls.
Now I need to write a custom rule to check for if some of windows controls are being used. Reason being, my team needs to be limited to only my custom controls that were designed to replace the windows controls.
Example: I need to search and if they are using System.Windows.Controls.Textbox.....I need it to be an error.
Can anyone please help me out with code?
I hope the problem is clear ..... in case of any further clarifications needed please let me know.
The logic for this sort of rule is fairly simple:
Check method bodies, visiting each constructor invocation to see if
the target class inherits from the base Control class.
If it does, verify that the target class is in your namespace or assembly (or however you can best identify it as "yours").
This is relatively simple. A much bigger problem is that the relevant contructors will usually be invoked in designer-generated code, which most folks tend to prefer ignoring when executing FxCop. To get your rule to work, you will need to include designer-generated code in your analyses.
The tool NDepend let's write custom code rules on .NET code much more easily than with FxCop. Disclaimer: I am one of the developer of the tool
With this tool you can write custom code rules over LINQ queries (what is named CQLinq). For example, the query you are asking for can be written this way with CQLinq:
// <Name>Don't use system controls</Name>
warnif count > 0
let systemControls = ThirdParty.Types.Where(
t => t.DeriveFrom("System.Windows.Forms.Control".AllowNoMatch()))
where systemControls.Count() > 0
from t in systemControls
let methodsThatCreateT = t.TypesUsingMe.ChildMethods().Where(m => m.CreateA(t))
select new { t, methodsThatCreateT }
While editing such code rule, instantly a browsable result is shown (in 3 milliseconds here). Double clicking any type or method in this result, jumps to its declaration in source code in Visual Studio:
200 default code rules are proposed. The tool is 100% integrated in Visual Studio 2012, 2010, and 2008. Default or custom code rules can be validated inside Visual Studio, and/or at Build Process time, in a generated HTML+javascript report.

How does intellisense work in Visual Studio?

I hope this is a valid question: how does intellisense work in VS2008? I'm after what is known about the algorithm it uses to find the suggestions, when exactly it pops up (the "." is just one obvious trigger), how its behavior can be modified if at all possible, etc.
To put this question into context: The main issue I'm trying to resolve is how to activate and deactivate intellisense in portions of the editor screen and how to modify where it searches to populate the suggestion box.
All information is welcome.
Take a look at this DIY Intellisense article on CodeProject.
It's more fun to reverse-engineer it, though. Let's consider the problem:
you need to identify the words of interest
you need to find the options possible
you need to present them
Now, the first step means you have to parse the code. You've got the C/C** keywords, you pre-parse the various function and class declarations, and load them into some kind of data structure. Then you parse the code and store the class, variable, etc names and put them in the same data structure.
The second step means you want a data structure which efficiently can search for a partial word and get all the words that have that prefix. You can do that with regular expressions, but that's not very efficient. An efficient data structure for that kind of search is a trie, which is discussed here on SO .
Once you have the list of possibilities, you just present it. You probably want to keep a reference to the root of the tree of possibilities so you can search them out in real time as someone types more letters.
Eclipse also has this feature and it is an open source project. Why not check out how Eclipse does it by actually looking at the code?
This question is too broad. Since there are a number of different languages the VS IDE supports out of the box AND there are N number of DSL and IDE enhancements that support alternative intellisense this implies a number of answers. If you are speaking about C# specifically then See the Tools | Options | Text Editor | C# | Intellisense area to see the available options of completion options. As far as the algorithm[s] used, you would be looking for the metadata of assemblies, copious caching of type members, MRU list for last member chosen for specific type, etc. If you have a more specific question, I'd suggest you clarify.
See the example of a DSL (ironpython) and its implementation here.
I haven't seen any text editor in VS that limits where IntelliSense shows up. It's all language specific. If your cursor is located at a point where IntelliSense might contribute to a valid token, that's when it will be used.
I believe there is some interaction with the project system being used, but that's as far as I know. I also believe there is a sample project system in the Visual Studio SDK, and that might give you an idea.
For such cases I sometimes use my own version of InteliSense that I developed for AutoHotKey when I want specific behavior. The point of this script is that it can be used with any editor, or basically any control accepting text. It works by recording text input and interpreting it upon syntax file.
You can perhaps use it as a base for the thing you want to achieve. I used ISense succesifully with several languages that don't have such thing, like Csound or even batch scripts. It will be possible to extend it to support C# using input monitoring in combination with Reflection.
Anyway, with AHK you can even control VS intelissense by "taking" the list of items it presents and filter it, or similar things. You may have some small problems with process boundaries but nothing that cant be fixed.
The intellisense ius generally, AFAIK, implemented using different methods. I read that Delphi is so fast that it implements isense by recompiling the project on each token and thats the reason C++ Builder didn't have isense as its compiling very slow.
As to your how to change where it looks question, short answer is, you can't. Intellisense for the most part is provided by reflection of assemblies included in your project ( and some other tricks with C++ ). What you are getting is a result of VS processing through all the assemblies you have included and all assemblies from the GAC.
That said, if you want to provide explicit intellisense results from a project you are working on, look into IVsContextualIntellisenseFilterProvider
Finally, for some insight into the behind the scenes process, check this blog post

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