Resource Adaptation

Problem Statement

No language can define itself. There have to be extra-language mechanisms for defining basic concepts of the language. For computers to understand the language, this means some code. Here is a basic example:

public class ShapeFactory {
    public static Shape create(Graph g, Resource r) {
        ShapeResources sr = ShapeResource.getInstance(g);
        if(g.isInstanceOf(r, sr.Rectangle)) {
            ...
            return new Rectangle2D.Double(...);
        }
        else if(g.isInstanceOf(r, sr.Ellipse)) {
            ...
            return new Ellipse2D.Double(...);
        }
        ...

        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Resource is not a shape or the shape is unsupported.");
    }
}

This works as long as there is only a fixed set of shapes. Addition of every new shape needs modification to the code. We would like to have something like:

• A declaration telling that instances of Shape can be adapted to objects of Shape class.
• For each concrete subtype of Shape, a code creating an object of the corresponding Shape class.
• Declarations connecting subtypes and code snippets.
• Utility that implements the creation pattern.

Solution

Declarations are written into adapters.xml-file that has to be located in the plugin root:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<adapters>

    <target interface="org.simantics.form.model.IWidgetModel">
        <baseType uri = "http://www.simantics.org/Form-1.0/Widget"/>
        <type uri = "http://www.simantics.org/Form-1.0/Label"
              class = "org.simantics.form.model.adapters.LabelAdapter"/>
        <type uri = "http://www.simantics.org/Form-1.0/InputText"
              class = "org.simantics.form.model.adapters.InputTextAdapter"/>
        ...
    </target>

    <target interface="org.simantics.form.model.ILayoutModel">
        <baseType uri = "http://www.simantics.org/Form-1.0/Layout"/>

        <!--
            Direct adaption to the specified class via
            constructor and possible arguments
        -->
        <type uri = "http://www.simantics.org/Form-1.0/GridLayout"
              class = "org.simantics.form.model.adapters.GridLayout">
            <graph/>
            <this/>
        </type>

        <!--
            A procedural adapter definition. adapterClass implements
            org.simantics.db.adaption.Adapter to construct an instance
            of the target interface.
        -->
        <adapter uri="http://www.simantics.org/Form-1.0/FormLayout"
              adapterClass="org.simantics.form.model.adapters.FormLayoutAdapter" />
    </target>

</adapters>

Each <target>...</target> section defines adaption to given interface.

<baseType> gives one or more types where all classes implementing the adaption have been inherited from.

<type> defines direct adaptation from instances of given type (uri) by construction the specified class (class) through Java Reflection API's using static method (constructor) if specified and a constructor of the class otherwise whereas <adapter> defines adaptation from instances of given type (uri) by using the given adapter (adapterClass). The adapter has to implement the following interface:

public interface Adapter<T> {
    void adapt(AsyncReadGraph g, Resource r, AsyncProcedure<T> procedure);
}

In addition the adapter may contain this kind of definitions:

      <resource uri="http://www.simantics.org/Layer0-1.0/OrderedSetElements"
          class="org.simantics.layer0.utils.binaryPredicates.OrderedSetElementsPredicate"/>

This means that the resource defined by the uri is always adapted to an instance of the given class.

The main difference between <type>/<resource> definitions and <adapter> definitions is that <type>/<resource> adaptation cannot be used for complex adaptation since both can only be used to adapt to instances of the defined adapter class and nothing else. <adapter> on the other hand can perform more complex analysis and return any instance of the adaptation target interface.

Defined adapters can be used with the following synchronous methods, where clazz-parameter refers to the interface in the adapter declaration:

public interface ReadGraph {
    ....
    <T> T adapt(Resource resource, Class<T> clazz)
            throws AdaptionException, ValidationException, ServiceException;

    <T> T adaptUnique(Resource resource, Class<T> clazz)
            throws AdaptionException, ValidationException, ServiceException;

    <T> T getPossibleAdapter(Resource resource, Class<T> clazz)
            throws ValidationException, ServiceException;

    <T> T getPossibleUniqueAdapter(Resource resource, Class<T> clazz)
            throws ValidationException, ServiceException;
    ...
}

For details, see ReadGraph interface.

In addition to <adapter>-elements, the file may contain <installer>-elements, with class-attribute referring to an implementation of the interface:

public interface AdapterInstaller {
    void install(ReadGraph g, AdaptionService service) throws Exception;
}

where

public interface AdaptionService {
    <T> void adapt(AsyncReadGraph g,
                   Resource r, Class<T> clazz, boolean possible,
                   AsyncProcedure<T> procedure);

    <T> void adaptNew(AsyncReadGraph g,
                      Resource r, Class<T> clazz, boolean possible,
                      AsyncProcedure<T> procedure);

    <T> void declareAdapter(Resource type, Class<T> clazz);

    <T> void addAdapter(Resource type, Class<T> clazz, Adapter<T> adapter);

    <T> void addInstanceAdapter(Resource resource, Class<T> clazz, Adapter<T> adapter);    
}

The class installs adapters by using method addAdapter (and addInstanceAdapter). You should use the xml-file to define your adapters if possible. The installer-mechanism is provided for cases where you want to install an adapter that is constructed with special parameters.

Direct Adapters

Direct adapters are used, when the user has a Resource and wants a specific Java interface e.g. for 2D diagrams, the user has an instance of DIA.Element and obtains an instance of org.simantics.diagram.adapter.ElementFactory. The Java instance can operate on the given resource for data-driven implementation of the ElementFactory.

Related Adapters

Related adapters are used, when the user has a relation Resource and a subject Resource and wishes to obtain a Java interface associated to the predicate, configured by a single statement defined by subject and relation. The adapter implementations are bound to the object Resource of the defining statement. The adapter implementation obtains the defining statement as parameter for data-driven implementation.

An example:

L0.StringAdapter <T L0.StatementAdapter
L0.String <T L0.Literal <T L0.StringAdapter

L0.HasLabel <R L0.HasProperty : L0.FunctionalRelation
  L0.HasRange L0.StringAdapter

L0.StringAdapter is defined such that it requires an implementation of an adapter to java.lang.String (there is currently no syntax yet for this).

L0.HasLabel is defined such that it refers to an object, which can be adapted to java.lang.String. This directs the user to obtain labels by using the adapter instead of expecting a L0.String. Thus we can make arbitrary data-driven and procedural implementations of this property.

Construction-time Parameters

Certain parameters can be specified for adapters defined with <type> and <resource> elements. These arguments will be directly forwarded to a constructor matching this argument list in your adapter implementation class.

<this/>

The resource that is being adapted.

<graph/>

ReadGraph for reading the graph database during construction of the adapted class instance.

<bundle/>

Bundle class instance which identifies the bundle in which this adapter is defined. Can also be used to specify the referenced bundle explicitly using its symbolic name, e.g. <bundle>bundle.id</bundle>.

<string>FOO</string>

Any string constant contained as text within the <string> tag. Passed to the constructor as a java.lang.String instance.

<single/>

Requires attribute uri which must specify a URI to a relation resource. If adaption is performed for resource S, this argument element looks for a single object O from the statement (S, R, O) and passes O as an argument to the adapter class. If no single object O exists, the adapter is given null.

<related/>

Requires attribute uri which must specify a URI to a relation resource. If adaption is performed for resource S, this argument element looks for all objects O existing in the database (S, R, O) and the objects to the adapter as a Collection<Resource>.

<orderedSet/>

Requires attribute uri which must specify a URI to an ordered set resource. Looks for the specified URI in the database, assumes it is an ordered set resource and loads the whole ordered set into a Collection<Resource> instance. This collection is passed as an argument to the adapter class.

See Also

XML schema for adapter definition XML files