Generate from a text model file rather than command line

Phoenix Forum Questions / Help
1

I want to generate my phoenix scaffolding from a uml or textual model rather than from command line, is there a way to do it -

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2

There are some options:

1 - a [text] bash script or otherwise to generate the scaffolding

2 - write a code generator to input the UML/text and generate source code files

3 - read the UML file during compilation and generate the code using metaprogramming.

Neither of these sound worthwhile to me, but you might have a use case that would make such an approach sensible

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3

Do you mean you’d rather not use mix? I’m not quite following your question to be honest.

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4

Thanks for replies Onor and Talkat , I can use mix but my requirement is something like this -
I should be able to generate and regenerate from a text file like the following -

Customer{

firstName:String
lastName:String
}

Order{
customer:Customer references Customer
orderItems:OrderItem contains many
}

…

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5

If you’re building a text file of that sort would it be that much more work to create a DDL representation of it? I mean you’re almost giving a SQL definition of the table layout–maybe just spend a little more time and create a SQL script?

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6

DDL is not as expressive as a real DSL for instance I can specify complex
validation statements within my text file, hope you can see the point -
Mongoose for instance provides a DSL for the mongo database , similary we
should have one for phoenix but one that is a lot richer than DDL

7

As far as I know you can specify relatively complex validation via DDL as well. Check constraints can go a long way toward bounding the data which can be entered into a column. I’m not sure I see a lot of gain for the amount of work which would be required to create a DSL for Phoenix because any DSL would probably just be a superset of DDL anyway.