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DXL Editor

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The smartest editor for Rational DOORS DXL

IBM Rational DOORS is a well established platform for engineers, managing project requirements in a flexible environment. DOORS data is manipulated with a dedicated language, DXL (the DOORS eXtension Language). To overcome the limitations of the DOORS native editor, Sodius has developed the DXL Editor offering unmatched features to facilitate developers’ lives.

Going far beyond syntax highlighting, the DXL Editor is a real development environment for DOORS DXL. The DXL Editor brings the richness and power of the market-leading Eclipse platform to provide a first-class environment for editing, executing and debugging your DXL scripts, on par with other well-known languages such as Java and C++.

There are two different licenses available for the DXL Editor, depending on your needs:

The Free License provides all the basic features for editing, browsing, compiling and running the code, and is perfectly suited for simple DXL programming tasks.

The DXL Editor development environment offers:

  • Code Completion for DXL keywords and function names
  • Direct execution of DXL scripts
  • Direct navigation to script errors
  • Outline view of files for easy navigation

If you are a professionnal developper, consider the Pro edition for improved efficiency.

The Pro License provides additional debug features and is especially suited for complex DXL programs. When improving efficiency and reducing your development time are the critical factors, the Pro License is the right choice!

With debug features, you will be able to:

  • Add breakpoints in your program
  • Control execution with stop, resume, and step-by-step
    execution
  • Inspect variables
  • Inspect data

Show your boss!

Edit

 

Syntax Highlight: Keywords, strings, comments and function calls are highlighted.
DXL Editor syntax highlighting
Mark Occurrences: Mark Occurrences dynamically highlights the occurrences of the word currently selected in the editor.
DXL Editor occurrrences highlighting

Content Assist: Content Assist provides a list of suggested completions for partially entered strings. Templates are shown together with the Content Assist proposals. There are existing templates, such as ‘for’, ‘if’ and more, but you can also define new templates.

Text Hover: When the mouse is over a DXL function call, a tooltip displays the function signature and its associated comment, if any.

DXL Editor content assitant

Browse

Outline: The Outline View displays the structure of the DXL file, listing the functions declared within it, and automatically refreshing as you edit the file. Clicking a function in this view causes the editor to jump to the function’s declaration.
DXL Editor outline view
Project Explorer: The Project Explorer lets you organize a consistent set of DXL files into projects. DXL Functions are displayed in the project’s view, without the need to open the corresponding DXL file in an editor, enabling you to quickly navigate into your project contents.
DXL Editor project explorer

Compile

Compilation: Each time a DXL file is modified and saved, the DXL compiler is automatically executed on that file. For each error, an annotation is added in the editor sidebar, with a tooltip showing the error message, and the corresponding line is underlined.
DXL Editor compiler
Problems View: Navigation through DXL errors for a particular file, a project or the entire workspace is done using the Problems view.
DXL Editor problems view

Run

Run: A DXL file can be executed directly from Eclipse.
DXL Editor running DXL
Console: A console is opened when a DXL file is executed. This console logs any DXL text output, and indicates any DXL windows that may be opened by the executed file. Execution errors are displayed in the console and hyperlinks are available on line numbers to jump to the corresponding location in the DXL editor.
DXL Editor output console

Debug (Pro)

Debug View: The Debug View is the primary view to manage the debugging of a program. This view displays the stack frame for the suspended DXL execution you are debugging, showing the list of function calls.
DXL Editor debugger view
Breakpoints View: The Breakpoints View lists all the breakpoints you currently have set in your workspace. You can double-click a breakpoint to display its location in the editor (if applicable). You can also enable or disable breakpoints, delete them, add new ones, and group them by working set.
DXL Editor debugger breakpoints view
Variables View: The Variables View displays information about the variables associated with the selected function in the Debug View. Selecting a variable will display more detailed information in the Detail Pane.
DXL Editor debugger variables view
Expressions View: The Expressions View allows you to dynamically execute queries to assist your debugging. You can enter any valid code and have the results calculated at every execution step to monitor values. Entries in the Expressions View can be selected to have more detailed information displayed in the Detail Pane.
DXL Editor expressions view

Webcasts

DXL Editor Free Introduction Webcast

DXL Editor Pro Debug Features Webcast

DXL Reference Manual Webcast

System requirements

  • Java Runtime Environment 1.5 or newer
  • Microsoft Windows
  • IBM Rational DOORS 8.x or newer

The DXL Editor is expected to run locally on the same machine where DOORS is running. Running two instances of DOORS on a single machine, with two different user identities, may result in unexpected behavior.

Connecting to DOORS through Citrix is not supported.