Skip to content

Format

The configuration is written in YAML, a human-friendly textual data format. YAML is indentation sensitive, be sure to properly indent nested elements with 2 spaces.

We use the commons-configuration2 framework to process configuration, which supports variables, nesting, and lists.

Variables

Any existing configuration option can be used as a variable with the ${var} syntax, for example:

id: org.metaborg:org.metaborg.meta.lang.sdf:${metaborgVersion}
metaborgVersion: 2.0.0-SNAPSHOT

Here, the ${metaborgVersion} variable reference is replaced with 2.0.0-SNAPSHOT when reading the id configuration option. Note that the order in which configuration options and variable references occur does not matter.

The ${path:root} builtin property can be used to point to the root of the language specification. Paths in the configuration must be absolute unless stated otherwise. Use ${path:root}/ to make paths absolute, relative to the project root, where required.

Furthermore, environment variables can be used through ${env:}, for example ${env:PATH}. See the documentation on variable interpolation for more detailed informations on how variables work.

Nesting

Configuration options can be nested by nesting YAML objects, for example:

language:
  sdf:
    version: sdf2

results in the language.sdf.version option being set to sdf2, and can be referenced with a variable using ${language.sdf.version}. The same option can be set in the following way:

language.sdf.version: sdf2

Lists

Lists are supported using the YAML list syntax, for example:

dependencies:
  compile:
  - org.metaborg:org.metaborg.meta.lang.esv:${metaborgVersion}
  - org.metaborg:org.metaborg.meta.lang.nabl:${metaborgVersion}
  - org.metaborg:org.metaborg.meta.lang.test:${metaborgVersion}

results in the dependencies.compile option being set to a list with elements:

  • org.metaborg:org.metaborg.meta.lang.esv:${metaborgVersion}
  • org.metaborg:org.metaborg.meta.lang.nabl:${metaborgVersion}
  • org.metaborg:org.metaborg.meta.lang.test:${metaborgVersion}

Last update: April 19, 2024
Created: April 19, 2024