vscode-boost-jam

This extension provides support for Boost.Jam language in Visual Studio Code.

Boost.Jam is an interpreted language implemented by Boost.Build engine, b2, which loads the Jam code that implements the build system. Boost.Build is developed as part of Boost project.

Features

• Syntax highlighting
• Code comments

Although the process of writing a TextMate language grammar remains poorly documented, this is a brave first attempt to provide a minimal usable support for Boost.Jam. By no means, it is free from bugs or covers all elements of Boost.Jam language. Non-trivial TextMate grammars for Visual Studio Code count from 500 to 5000 lines of code, and this one less than 200.

Installation

• Visual Studio Code > Extensions (CTRL+SHIFT+X)
• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=mloskot.vscode-boost-jam

Acknowledgements

• Matt Neuburg for his Writing a TextMate Grammar: Some Lessons Learned.
• Michael Lovitt for Rubular.
• Rene Rivera for converting Boost.Build docs to AsciiDoc.
• Boost.Build developers for the excellent build system.

Development

The main part of the extension is the bjam.tmLanguage.json file. This file contains language grammar for Boost.Jam syntax highlighting. The file was written from scratch and not converted from any existing TextMate grammar.

If you want to offer a fix or improvement, awesome!

Please improve the file and create a pull request against this git repository.

All contributions are welcome!

Testing

There are no automated tests provided. There is just test/colorize-fixtures/test.jam file provided, but without company of test/colorize-results/test_jam.json file. In fact, I have no idea how such tests should be implemented.

Instead, install or run the extension and open test/colorize-fixtures/test.jam file. Look what you see and compare it with what you would prefer to see. Then, hopefully, happy hacking in attempt to correct the language grammar :-)

Running and debugging your extension explains in details how to run the extension for convenient development and testing. In short:

1. Open vscode-boost-jam folder in VSCode and hit F5 to start debugging.
2. New (preview) window appears with the extension loaded, in it, open the test.jam or your own Jamfile.
3. Edit the grammar file in the parent window.
4. Reload the debugging (preview) window with CTRL+R
5. Observe result, modify the test.jam.
6. Iterate over steps from 3 to 5

Publishing

(by original author)

Follow the official guide on [Publishing Extension(https://code.visualstudio.com/api/working-with-extensions/publishing-extension) to VS Code Extension Marketplace.

License

MIT

Enjoy!