JSDT/JSDT Code Analytics

JSDT Code Analytics

JSDT 2.0 is missing the content outline and content proposal functionality.

• In JSDT 1.0 we used to parse all the .js files with Rhino and to store the AST in memory. With the full AST in memory, it was easy to generate a content outline tree and then to use inference to provide the content assist.
• In JSDT 2.0 we introduced tolerant parsing, but we parse only the .js files which are open in the editor. Also, we do not load the full AST in memory, we do not generate a full content outline tree and we don't provide content assist.

Despite JSDT 2.0 is modern and fast, we should fix content outline and content assist for making users happy, (ie Bug 510677#c3).

Tern

Tern.js is a code-analysis engine for JavaScript written in javascript. It is a good model for the functionalities we want to improve. As a downside, it requires loading all the source files, which should be sent POST to an http server.

Js Program

We could write a .js program which loads all the available source files, and then outputs a json file with all the information needed to build a content tree and store it on disk. Then, we could use the .json file on disk to infer the suggestions.

How can we improve JSDT by restoring the content outline and the content proposal?

I think it all starts by having a tree representing the content outline