Sonar YAML Grammar builder

Sonar YAML Grammar builder is a Sonar SSLR extension to build grammars based on JSON/YAML documents.

Build status (all branches)

How to build

Make sure you have at least a JDK 1.8
Install Maven
Launch Maven install

License

Licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 3.0

How to use

This plugin is designed to be used in conjunction with the Sonar SSLR Framework. It extends it with new grammar primitives to describe arrays, objects and their properties (mandatory or optional).

Building your grammar

An object is described as a standard Sonar SSLR rule. The most widely adopted pattern is to create an enum for all your grammar's rules, and to provide a create() method to populate the builder.

public enum OpenApi3Grammar implements GrammarRuleKey {
    ROOT,
    INFO,
    CONTACT,
    LICENSE,
    CALLBACK;

    public static YamlGrammarBuilder create() {
        // build your grammar here
    }
}

The YamlGrammarBuilder class is very similar to the LexerfulGrammarBuilder provided by the SSLR framework. It provides helper methods to describe your grammar, such as rule definitions, one-of choices, sequences, etc. As with the default SSLR toolkit, you must define a root rule for your document.

    public static YamlGrammarBuilder create() {
        YamlGrammarBuilder b = new YamlGrammarBuilder();
        b.setRootRule(ROOT);
    
        b.rule(ROOT).is(b.object(
           // properties definitions
        );
        
        return b;
    }

Describing objects

To describe objects, the YAML grammar builder provides new primitives to express which properties are expected in an object. Most properties are optional in YAML schemas, so by default the property() methods defines an optional property - the parsing of the document will not fail if the property is missing. To define mandatory properties and trigger a parsing error if the field is missing, use mandatoryProperty() instead.

    b.rule(EXTERNAL_DOC).is(b.object(
        b.property("description", b.string()),
        b.mandatoryProperty("url", b.string())
    ));

To define properties that match a certain pattern, use the patternProperty method. Pattern properties are always optional. Important note: the order of pattern definition matters. Define the most restrictive rule first to avoid starving the more open rule.

    // GOOD EXAMPLE: the most restrictive rule is defined first
    b.rule(EXTERNAL_DOC).is(b.object(
        b.patternProperty("^x-.*", b.anything())),
        b.patternProperty(".*", PATH)
    );
    // BAD EXAMPLE: the second rule will never be matched
    b.rule(EXTERNAL_DOC).is(b.object(
        b.patternProperty(".*", PATH),
        b.patternProperty("^x-.*", b.anything())
    );

You can also define arrays, as rule targets or as properties:

    b.rule(AN_ARRAY).is(b.array(b.string()));
    b.rule(ROOT).is(b.object(
        // ...
        b.property("servers", b.array(SERVER)),
        // ...
    );

Describing property values

The YAML Grammar builder comes with matchers for the standard YAML scalar types: string(), integer(), float(), boolean() and null(). You can use them in rules definitions, as demonstrated in the examples above.

As in the standard SSLR toolkit, you can also define other rules as targets of the properties.

        b.rule(INFO).is(b.object(
                b.mandatoryProperty("title", b.string()),
                b.property("contact", CONTACT),
                b.property("license", LICENSE),
                b.mandatoryProperty("version", b.string()),
                b.patternProperty("^x-.*", b.anything())
        ));

        b.rule(CONTACT).is(b.object(
                b.property("name", b.string()),
                b.property("url", b.string()),
                b.property("email", b.string()),
                b.patternProperty("^x-.*", b.anything())
        ));

The YAML Grammar builder also defines basic rules for generic JSON objects:

anything() to match any valid JSON/YAML payload (object, array, scalar)
scalar() to match any scalar
anyObject() to match any valid JSON/YAML object
anyArray() to match any valid JSON/YAML array
string() to match a string value
bool() and bool(true|false) to match any or a specific boolean value
floating() and integer() to match a floating point value or integer value, respectively.

The YAML grammar builder allows you to define restrictions to the values that textual and boolean properties can take:

    b.mandatoryProperty("openapi", b.firstOf("3.0.0", "3.0.1")),
    b.property("onlyFalse", b.bool(false))

Note: the object() method only accepts property definitions. You cannot use basic composers on property definitions, only on property values.

Parsing documents with the YAML scanner

The SSLR toolkit allows one to define lexers with a series of channels. However, the YAML grammar takes a different approach and builds on a 2-pass parsing:

the first pass parses the document as a regular YAML document, and generate an SSLR AST;
the second pass inspects the AST for conformity with your grammar, and generates a new syntax tree.

The plugin provides an integrated scanner that performs these 2 passes. To parse a document, compose the parser with your grammar definition, as with any SSLR grammar/lexer combination:

    YamlParser parser = new YamlParser(Charset.forName("UTF-8"), OpenApi3Grammar.create());
    JsonNode node = parser.parse(new File("myYamlFile.yaml"));

Inspecting your documents

To facilitate the parsing of documents, the JsonNode class offers tools to navigate between in properties of a document's abstract syntax tree, get back to the property key, and find elements of an array. These tools are strongly inspired by Jackson's JsonNode class.

Selecting a property node: JsonNode propertyNode = parent.at("/my/fourth/level/property")
Getting the value from a property: JsonNode valueNode = propertyNode.value()
Getting the key from a valueNode: JsonNode keyNode = valueNode.key() or parent.at("/my/property").key()
Getting elements of an array: List<JsonNode> elements = parent.at("/my/array/property").elements()
Getting all properties of an object: Collection<JsonNode> properties = parent.at("/my/array/property").properties()

To extract the actual value of a scalar node, use JsonNode.stringValue(), JsonNode.intValue(), JsonNode.booleanValue() or JsonNode.intValue() as needed.

As with the regular SSLR toolkit, you can access the node's token with JsonNode.getToken() to inspect its document properties, such as getLine(), getColumn() or getOriginalValue().

skattela/sslr-yaml-parser