Rodin Developer Support

The Developer Support provides resources for developing plug-ins for the Rodin Platform.

Rodin Developer FAQ

see Developer FAQ.

Architecture of the Rodin Platform

Rodin Platform Core

• Database

• Builder

• Rodin Index Design

• Indexing System

• Undo Redo

• File Root Separation

Event-B User Interface

The Event-B User Interface of the Roding Platform has two major components that are concerned with either modelling in Event-B or proving properties of models.

• Modelling User Interface

• Proving User Interface

Apart from these are more minor components.

• Proof Purger allows to delete unused proofs.

• Proof Skeleton Design is a view that displays skeletons of existing proofs

• Auto-Completion Design proposes a list of names to the user editing a model

Event-B Component Library

Event-B models and all proof-related information are stored in the Rodin database. The syntax of the mathematical notation, that is, expressions, predicates, and assignments, are maintained in an abstract syntax tree. Abstract syntax trees are manipulated by means of a class library that can be used independently of Eclipse. They are saved in the database in human-readable form as Unicode character strings. Event-B constructs, such as contexts and machines, are not represented as abstract syntax trees. They are stored and retrieved directly from the database (by contrast, mathematical formulas need additional parsing). Well-formedness of Event-B constructs is verified by a static checker. The static checker has two main purposes: (1) it generates error messages for ill-formed constructs, and (2) it filters well-formed parts of components to be subjected to proof obligation generation. The proof obligation generator uses those parts of constructs that are well-formed and generates proof obligations from them. Finally, the proof manager attempts to prove proof obligations and maintains existing proofs associated with proof obligations. The proof manager works automatically and interactively. When new proof obligations have been generated it attempts to discharge them automatically. If it does not succeed, it permits interactive proof (by means of the proving user interface).

• Abstract Syntax Tree

• Static Checker

• Proof Obligation Generator

• Proof Manager

• Proof Simplification

Extending Rodin

• Developer Documentation

• Plug-in Tutorial

• Extending the Rodin Database

• Extending the project explorer

• Extending the Structure Editor

• Extending the Pretty Print Page

• Extending the Proof Manager

• Extending the Index Manager

• Extending the Static Checker

• Index Query

Useful Hints

Version Control

All sources of the core Rodin platform (and of some plug-ins) are managed under version control in SourceForge. The repository currently used is Subversion and can be accessed using URL https://rodin-b-sharp.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/rodin-b-sharp.

Building against a version of Rodin

To develop extensions to the Rodin platform your code build needs access to a consistent (version-wise) set of Rodin platform plug-ins. (Don't just check out the latest versions from 'Head' because it may be under development and in an inconsistent state). An easy way to set up your workspace is to import the Rodin platform source code from SVN into your workspace using the 'Releng' plug-in. See Installing the sources from Subversion in Eclipse for further instructions.

Alternatively, you can set your plugin development target platform to any Rodin installation you have installed (Eclipse-Preferences-Plug-in Development-Target Platform). This is useful as a final test that everything will work once installed into Rodin but because it uses a 'built' platform, you don't get access to the Rodin source code (e.g. for de-bugging).

Publishing

A Plug-in developed for the Rodin Platform will normally consist of a collection of eclipse 'plugin' projects and a single eclipse 'feature' project. The feature project contains branding information such as logo's icons and licensing details. It is also used to identify your Plug-in so that users can install it. To build your Plug-in use an eclipse 'site' project. This will build the jar files for your plugin projects and a jar for your feature. See eclipse documentation for more details.

Now you need to make your Plug-in available for users to install via the Main Rodin Update site (which comes built-in to the Rodin platform).

Create a new release folder in the FRS (On Sourceforge Rodin project website - Admin-file releases) noting the naming conventions (e.g. Plugin_<mypluginName>). Now you can upload your jar files using the controls on the releases webpage). Note that you should include a zip of the complete source projects to comply with Sourceforge rules. You should not repeat files that have not changed. The Feature jar will take care of unchanged plugin jars and use the existing links. Only new jars should be included in a particular release. See here for details:- http://alexandria.wiki.sourceforge.net/File+Release+System+-+Offering+Files+for+Download

Finally, the update site must be updated to redirect the update requests to the files on the FRS.

1. From the sourceforge SVN repository, check out the project org.rodinp.updateSite.
2. Edit the file site.xml to add your feature and plug-in archive paths (Details for Maintaining Main Rodin Update Site)
3. Test the changes by performing the install into a Rodin installation, via the local update site in your workspace.
4. Commit the changes back into SVN
5. Upload the new version of the update site onto the Rodin webspace (Details for Uploading Main Rodin Update Site).