[Request] TTCN-3 language support

[laf0rge]

TTCN-3 is a domain specific programming language used particularly (but not only) in the telecom domain.

For more information see www.ttcn-3.org/

There are open source imlpementations of a TTCN3 compiler (https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/tools.titan) as well as a language server (https://github.com/nokia/vscode-ttcn3), and tools like the Eclipse IDE support syntax highlighting for it.

It would be great if highlight.js would get TTCN-3 language support, as plenty of TTCN-3 projects use gerrit for code review, and gerrit in turn uses highlight.js for its syntax highlighting.

As a FOSS developer for 25+ years, I know I should submit a patch. Unfortuantely I have zero to no knowledge about Javascript, so I really don't think I would be efficient doing it.

In case anyone is interested in implementing this, I might even be able to provide some funding.

[joshgoebel]

It would be great if highlight.js would get TTCN-3 language support, as plenty of TTCN-3 projects use gerrit for code review, and gerrit in turn uses highlight.js for its syntax highlighting.

Just FYI, this is often a false assumption:

Project A uses Highlight.js. Add grammar to Highlight.js and project A will magically support grammar.

Many projects purposely use a subset of grammars (for size, speed, etc)... just adding a new grammar to core does not magically make it work with every tool that users our engine - many tools still have to decide to opt-in of their own accord.

Also we don't merge new languages into core currently (back story). So if someone was to develop a grammar, it would need to be done as a 3rd party grammar module - and then Gerrit would need to decide to manually add support for it.

I might even be able to provide some funding.

If you were serious about this mentioning an amount might help. $30 is quite different than $300, etc...

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As a policy we typically auto-close such requests, as the core team does not implement new languages and generally language requests die a slow death unless the person doing the requesting finds someone directly to do the work. https://github.com/highlightjs/highlight.js/blob/master/docs/language-requests.rst

I will leave this open briefly (because of the mention of funding), but please clarify your offer of funding.

You can also add this issue to the Wiki also (https://github.com/highlightjs/highlight.js/wiki/Grammar-Requests)

[laf0rge]

It would be great if highlight.js would get TTCN-3 language support, as plenty of TTCN-3 projects use gerrit for code review, and gerrit in turn uses highlight.js for its syntax highlighting.

Just FYI, this is often a false assumption:

Project A uses Highlight.js. Add grammar to Highlight.js and project A will magically support grammar.

I'm not saying it will magically work. For sure, gerrit upstream wold have to select support for that language/grammar. And until they do (or if they wouldn't do), it's relatively easy for anyone operating their own gerrit instance to simply replace/patch the highlight.js file in their gerrit instance.

Also we don't merge new languages into core currently (back story).

That's sad to hear, but definitely thanks for the heads-up.

I might even be able to provide some funding.

If you were serious about this mentioning an amount might help. $30 is quite different than $300, etc...

As I'm not sure what the effort estimate would be, it's hard to put a figure at it. Ideally somebody who understands the required work would make a proposal. For sure we don't have to talk about a two-digit USD amount here ;) It will certainly be multiple hours of work, and I have no illusions about hourly rates in the IT industry. So a few hundred bucks should certainly be a realistic order of magnitude.

As a policy we typically auto-close such requests, as the core team does not implement new languages and generally language requests die a slow death unless the person doing the requesting finds someone directly to do the work. https://github.com/highlightjs/highlight.js/blob/master/docs/language-requests.rst

Understood.

You can also add this issue to the Wiki also (https://github.com/highlightjs/highlight.js/wiki/Grammar-Requests)

Thanks, will do.

[joshgoebel]

it's relatively easy for anyone operating their own gerrit instance to simply replace/patch the highlight.js file in their gerrit instance.

Or to add an extra JS script tag... although patching with our CDN distributable files is truly just a concat operation. But yeah if it's self-hosted should be pretty trivial.

From the snippet here it doesn't look like a super complex language (but perhaps that's a simple snippet). I see now its' the same snippet use on Wikipedia. Is there a LOT more to the language than what is shown syntactically?

For sure we don't have to talk about a two-digit USD amount here ;)

Ah, well that's helpful to know. I've found when someone offers to pay for time online in a vague sense it can mean almost anything. :-)

[laf0rge]

From the snippet here it doesn't look like a super complex language (but perhaps that's a simple snippet). I see now its' the same snippet use on Wikipedia. Is there a LOT more to the language than what is shown syntactically?

The full BNF definition of the syntax can be found in Annex A of https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_es/201800_201899/20187301/04.12.01_60/es_20187301v041201p.pdf

if you want to look at a reasonably large set of code written in TTCN-3, have a look at https://git.osmocom.org/osmo-ttcn3-hacks/tree/library

For sure we don't have to talk about a two-digit USD amount here ;)

Ah, well that's helpful to know. I've found when someone offers to pay for time online in a vague sense it can mean almost anything. :-)

In the Eclipse TITAN Forum at https://www.eclipse.org/forums/index.php?t=msg&th=1106951&goto=1838021&#msg_1838021, Gabor (from the TITAN developer team at Ericsson) has stated that their internal gerrit has syntax highlighting for TTCN-3. So it looks like somebody may already have done the work but not bothered to release it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[joshgoebel]

it looks like somebody may already have done the work but not bothered to release it. I

Well it might be simpler to follow up that lead and see if that code could simply be released OSS. :-)

[joshgoebel]

Does anyone on your team use the VS Code support? It's syntax grammar file looks pretty simple overall, which is a good sign IF TTCN-3 users would consider VS Code to have "good" highlighting support for TTCN-3.

[joshgoebel]

@laf0rge You should shoot me an email in mid-March if you get no other traction on this and still would like to pursue it.

[joshgoebel]

@laf0rge Does anyone on your team use the VS Code support? Is it's support good?

(auto-closing)

[laf0rge]

@laf0rge Does anyone on your team use the VS Code support? Is it's support good?

I don't think anyone in our team uses VS Code, sorry.

[pespin]

I'm using this highlighter for Atom editor and it works well for me, in case it's useful:
https://atom.io/packages/language-ttcn-3