Documentation

Documentation

How To Extend Xpect

(This information applies for git ‘master’, and not for ante releases yet).

The Xpect runtime is a loosely coupled set of Java classes and each of them can be exchanged. Each of these Java classes is called a “Contribution”.

Contributions have roles and a Java class becomes a contribution when

• it is annotated with Java annotations that associates it with a role.
• it has been imported via @XpectImport()

The following roles are defined for contributions:

• @XpectSetupFactory:The class is instantiated and managed by the StateContainer.
• @XpectSetupComponent: The class is available in the XPECT_SETUP section. These classes will also be proposed by content assist.
• @XpectSetupRoot: The types of the add(foo)-methods of this class are the types allowed as root-components in the XPECT_SETUP section. Furthermore classes annotated with @XpectSetupRoot can be invoked with ISetupInitializer.initialize(T).
• @XpectGuiceModule the annotated class is a google Guice module. The module will be mixed into the current language’s injector.

The @XpectImport annotation is valid on

• all Xpect Java test classes
• on Java classes that are used as parameter types of @Xpect test methods
• on Java annotations that are used on parameter types on @Xpect test methods
• on Java classes that are contributions
• on super classes of any of the classes mentioned above.

To replace any contribution (even the ones shipped with Xpect), you can annotate your own contribution with @XpectReplace(FooBar). FooBar being the contribution you want to replace. A contribution that has been replaced is not used any further by Xpect.

The annotation @org.xpect.XpectRequiredEnvironment can be used on contributions to activate them only for the specified environments. Example: @XpectRequiredEnvironment(Environment.STANDALONE_TEST) This allows to have implementations of contributions that are specific to certain environments.