XTC Simple Hello World App Template

This template can be used to create a simple XTC app. It is a good starting point for new XTC apps.

TL;DR - I just want to build this

Set up the Environment

... From a clone of the XVM repository

1. Execute git clone https://github.com/xtclang/xvm.git <xvmdir> (close the XVM repo to another place on your dev machine)
2. In the <xvmdir> Execute ./gradlew publishLocal to publish the XDK artifacts to the local maven repository on your dev machine (typically $HOME/.m2)

... and/or as a self contained project

1. Understand why you need a GitHub personal access token (for now), to refer to XDK Maven artifacts, by reading the comment at the top of settings.gradle.kts in the repo root.

2. Set up a GitHub classic personal access token with read:package privileges for the xtclang.org Maven package repository on GitHub.

   Click your user Settings -> Developer Settings -> Personal Access Tokens -> Tokens (Classic) (or go to: https://github.com/settings/tokens). Create an access token with at least read:packages privileges, if you don't have one already with that (and possibly more). Copy and paste the token to $GRADLE_USER_HOME/gradle.properties as a separate line on the form gitHubToken=<token>. While you are in there, add a line with gitHubUser=<your github username> too.

   (This step will go away soon, at least for release artifacts (frequently updated snapshot artifacts may remain on GitHub), and you will soon be able to just configure your repositories in the settings file as gradlePluginPortal() and mavenCentral())

   $GRADLE_USER_HOME, referred to in this step, is typically set to be <your home directory>/.gradle.

Building the app

./gradlew build [--scan] [--stacktrace]

Running the app

Default config:

./gradlew greet 

The default entity to be greeted is "World", but you can specify one with the entityToGreet property, like:

./gradlew greet [-PentityToGreet=<string>]

Or in its equivalent environment variable:

ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_entityToGreet=<string> ./gradlew greet

Experiments

Try running a build scan with the --scan parameter at the end of the ./gradlew command line and browse an X-ray of what is going on inside the build process.

You can use source sets just like with the Java plugin. You can add other source set folders, with custom names, resource folders, and configure the xtcCompile and xtcRun build DSL sections to do anything that is possible to tell the existing xcc and xec launchers.

How to build this in IntelliJ (optional)

Once you have followed the steps above, you can also import this app into IntelliJ (or any other Gradle aware IDE). For IntelliJ specifically, select "File -> Open -> ". IntelliJ may ask you of you trust this project, to which you have to reply that you do.

The project is compiled through the Gradle wrapper, which is a common mechanism installation of Gradle or any of its helper apps. It just requires an old bootstrap JDK installation, which can be Java 8 ir later. The Gradle Wrapper script will ensure you have the correct version of Gradle and all its dependencies, without modifying any state on your system outside this repository and its build.

On the top right of the screen, open the Gradle Settings. You should see an icon that looks like a wrench to the right of top of the gradle window. Click it to open the Gradle settings, and confirm that your project is using the Gradle Wrapper style build, and that it uses any JDK version 21 or better. You can also select to use IDEA for building and running your project, instead of Gradle, which will give you better incremental updates when you change something, but let's do one thing at a time. If everything seems to work, exit the Gradle settings and click the "Reload Gradle" icon (the two circular arrows) at the top left of the Gradle settings. You should be good to go.

However, these settings are recommended

• Use IDEA for compiling and testing instead of Gradle (once you have a green build)
• Compiler -> Incrementally rebuild project
• Compiler -> Build independent modules in parallel
• Compiler -> Be generous to the Gradle daemons and give them more than the 700 MB of memory they have by default, to run faster.