Build a Domain Specific Language with DSL Tools - Build a Domain Model for Business Entities

The notation which will be used in the designer for our domain specific language is described in a XML file. As with the domain model the black solution contains a default description, and for this lab we will load a prepared file to save time.

1. To have a look at the default XML file that was generated from the blank language template, click on the "BizEntity.dsldd" tab on the main window of Visual Studio. You'll notice that it refers to the classes from the original domain model, such as "ConceptA".
                     
   
2. Close this file by clicking on File | Close 
   
3. In the Solution Explorer, right-click on the Designer project, and choose Add->Existing Item from the context menu.
   
4. Set the Files of Type: filter to All Files. 
   
5. In the File Name: box, type c:\dsl\BizEntity.dsldd. Click the Add button.
   
6. Confirm you want to replace the existing file.
   
7. Double-click on the BizEntity.dsldd file you just added, to open it in the XML editor. The file will be located in the Designer project in the Solution Explorer.
   
8. The first function of the dsldd file is to define the notation for our designer. This notation can include shapes which appear in the toolbox and can be dragged onto the design surface, connector lines which connect shapes, and more. To make this a little more concrete, let’s look at an example from our “BizEntity” domain. In the XML editor, browse down until you see a section marked with the <shapes>
   tag (line 185, about three quarters of the way through the file).
   

   

9. We won’t go into too much of the detail of this format in the lab, but notice that we define two shapes, a “BusinessRulesShape”, and an “EntityShape”. Note that the second shape is defined using the <compartmentShape> tag, because we want it to have a sub-compartment for displaying the attributes defined on the entity.
   
   

   Next: Map the Notation to the Domain Model >>
    
   

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