metaas announced: ActionScript DOM in Java

David Holroyd announced metaas on the OSFlash mailing list today and it looks very exciting indeed.

metaas is an ActionScript parser/code generator written in Java that, "provides Java applications with a 'Document Object Model' for ActionScript 3 code." David states in his email that the primary purpose of metaas is as a code generator but what excites me most are its potential uses in pre-processing/post-processing of ActionScript code, documentation generation, etc. Having an ActionScript-aware DOM in Java could also be useful for ActionScript editors like the open source ASDT project.

From the documentation, here's a snippet that demonstrates how to parse an ActionScript file:

[java]FileInputStream in = new FileInputStream("Test.as");
InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(in);
ActionScriptFactory fact = new ActionScriptFactory();
ActionScriptParser parser = fact.newParser();
ASCompilationUnit unit = parser.parse(reader);

ASPackage pkg = unit.getPackage();
ASType type = pkg.getType();
List methods = type.getMethods();
for (Iterator i=methods.iterator(); i.hasNext(); )
{
ASMethod meth = (ASMethod)i.next();
System.out.println(meth.getName());
}[/java]

Learn more about metaas on the metaas homepage.

6 Responses to “metaas announced: ActionScript DOM in Java”


  1. 1 spender

    one of the things i miss the most from visual studio when I put my as3/eclipse hat on are the excellent refactoring tools. hopefully this kind of tool will bring some of that power to the eclipse environment. woo

  2. 2 Javaman

    I use Java usually.
    I like Visual Basic…

  3. 3 giuseppe

    Thx for sharing this mate - very useful, I will give it a try

  4. 4 Daniel

    I am not getting why ActionScript is not use to make a video sharing site.
    I really love the graphic and animation that you can create with flash but:
    How come you Spider can’t still read ActionScript?
    How come you need a flash streaming to host videos?
    Would flash be soon the king of internet or it will disappear?

  5. 5 jacks

    what about Android on Iphone?

  6. 6 Sean

    Great staff dude, If i could program, I will do an open source software that users can download to their mobile phone and customise it, so everyone would have a different interface

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