Ox for Visual Studio Code

by Prolept

This extension provides rich language support for Ox.

Branch	Status
Master
Dev

If you are new to VS Code see Getting started with Visual Studio Code

Requirements

• OxMetrics 9 or above. For academic use, a free version of Ox (console) is available from this web site

• Windows 64 bits, MacOS or Linux 64 bits

Installation

After installation, the extension setting oxmetricsFolder must be set to the folder path of oxmetrics.

Example:

• Windows : C:\Program Files\OxMetrics9
• MacOs : /Applications/OxMetrics9/
• Linux : /usr/share/OxMetrics9/

You can change the extension setting via : File -> Preferences -> Setting -> Extension -> OxCode (see Setting)

A reload of Visual Studio Code is needed to complete installation.

Language Features

Debugging (experimental)

• Debugger

IntelliSense

• Auto Completion of symbols as you type
• Signature Help for functions as you type
• Auto completion when typing #include or #import statements

Code Navigation

• Go To (or Peek) Implementation of symbols
• Go To (or Peek) Definition of symbols
• Go to the symbol in file
• Provide symbols to the outline view.

Diagnostics

• Linter (basic errors checking)

Code Editing

• Formatter
• Code Snippets for quick coding

Others

• Command to run a .ox code (right click, and click Ox Run)
• Syntax Highlighting for .ox and .oxh files.
• A problem matcher is implemented to quickly jump to errors.
• Documentation generation (javadoc style)
• region folding ( via //region and //endregion )

Auto Completion

Autocompletion is provided as you type, after [.] (while calling a function ) or [this.] (inside a member function).

For a better performance, it is not recommended to turn on the Auto Save feature of VSCode.

Include Autocomplete

Provide autocompletion when you type an #include or #import statement. After typing < or " to begin the file name, the extension will scan your include directories to provide suggestions.

Signature Help

Signature Help is given after a parenthesis (. If the function declaration is documented with a javadoc comment, then the documentation is displayed.

Linter

A basic linter rule is currently supported :

• Check for unused local variables.

To run the linter, right click an ox file, click Show All Commands and OX Lint my code.

Go To Implementation

Go To Implementation (or Peek) is supported for functions (CTRL+F12 or CTRL + Shift + F12).

Go To Definition

Go To Definition (or Peek) is supported for functions:

Symbols

Formatter

Formatter : right click -> Format Document, thanks to AStyle

Code Snippets

Doc generation

Documentation for function can automatically be inserted by inserting /** + Enter :

Commands

The extension provides several commands in the Command Palette for working with Ox files:

• Ox Compile and Link to compile the current ox file and link
• Ox Compile to compile the current ox file
• Ox Stop to stop the running ox session
• Ox Clean .bak files to delete .bak files that are in the current directory
• Ox Lint my code to lint the current file
• Ox Help to open the official ox help
• Ox Open file with oxmetrics to open a file in oxmetrics
• Ox Run to run the current file
• Ox OxRun to run the current file using OxRun (for graphics)
• Ox Run in terminal to run the current file via a terminal
• Ox Reset OxCode Cache to clear the internal cache of OxCode

You can access all of the above commands from the command palette (Cmd+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+P).

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings:

• oxcode.astyleOptions: see Astyle options (default : --pad-header --break-blocks --pad-oper --style=java --delete-empty-lines --unpad-paren)
• oxcode.oxmetricsFolder: The path to the root folder of oxmetrics .
• oxcode.checkSyntaxOnSave: If true, check the syntax on save (default : true).
• oxcode.completion: True to enable completion (default : true).
• oxcode.signature: True to enable signature Help (default : true).

Credits

• Wave (Boost libraries)
• Anltr 4 (Parser generator)
• Artistic Style (Automatic Formatter)
• vscode-go
• intellij plugin for ANTLR v4
• cmake
• Jurgen Doornik and Sébastien Laurent for helpful discussions.

FAQ

• Does this extension use any online services?
  • No, this extension is self contained. It doesn't use any telemetry services.
• How to report a bug ?
  • via the github repository. If you can fix it, feel free to send us pull requests.
• Does this extension support prior version of OxMetrics ?
  • It has not been tested, but it should work.
• How to request a feature ?
  • via the github repository, don't hesitate: all comments are welcome !

Tips and Tricks

• If you want to use OxMetrics directly in Excel: see XlModeler

• You can easily exclude *.bak files from the explorer using the following in your user setting:

   "files.exclude": {
         "**/*.bak": true
      }

• An alternative way to run/compile ox files is via tasks. See Tasks .

  Example (windows):

 {
    // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
    // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
    
        {
            "label": "Run ox",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "C:\\PROGRA~1\\OxMetrics8\\ox\\bin64\\oxl.exe",
            "args": [
                "-i${workspaceFolder}",
                "-i${fileDirname}",
                "${file}"
            ],
            "problemMatcher": [],
            "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            }
        }
    ]
}

• If you have an issue about ox, you can ask it on stackoverflow with the tag "ox".

Known Issues

• Format Document doesn't work properly when the ox file contains a nested comment.
• Syntax highlighting doesn't work with text enclosed between backticks.

Licence

• This extension: The MIT License (MIT)
• OxLinter : copyright Prolept, this extension relies heavily on a command line executable named OxLinter (freeware) that is bundled with this extension.