philec is the command-line driver for the PHiLe Compiler.

Basic usage:

philec -d mongodb -l go -o src/dal -n dbwrapper src/User.phi src/Post.phi

The absolute minimum of arguments to be provided are:

• -d, --database: the name of the database engine to use. Currently, it is one of:

  • sqlite3
  • mongodb
  • mariadb

• -l, --language: the programming language in which the generated Database Abstraction Layer will be emitted. Currently, it is one of:

  • rust
  • c
  • cxx
  • objc
  • swift
  • go
  • js
  • python
  • ruby
  • java
  • csharp
  • haskell

• At least one PHiLe source file, typically with extension .phi.

There are more command-line parameters, for greater flexibility:

• A namespace can be specified using the -n or --namespace argument. Different backends treat it differently, in a way that is most idiomatic and most useful for the programming language in question. For example, in Go, it will be used for naming the package. For this reason, this argument is mandatory for the Go backend.

• The output directory of PHiLe is the current directory, ., by default. This can be changed via the -o or --outdir option.

• By default, PHiLe generates a DAL that retrieves values using POD (Plain Old Data) objects. These are immutable and do not automatically reflect changes in the underlying database. If you wish to use the Active Record strategy instead, which will create "smart" objects which automatically synchronize with the underlying storage, then you can pass the -a or --access parameter. The supported values for this argument are:

  • pod for Plain Old Data,
  • acr for Active Record.

• Since the PHiLe DSL probably has different stylistic conventions from those of your programming language of choice (unless that language happens to be Rust), names of program entities, such as types, functions, and class fields, need to be rewritten when generating the actual DAL. PHiLe has built-in defaults that are the most idiomatic/correct/useful for each supported language, but for maximal flexibility, all of them can be overridden. The following command line options are available for this purpose:

  • -t, --typexform: applied to user-defined type names (classes, structs and enums).
  • -e, --fieldxform: applied to struct and class field names.
  • -v, --varxform: applied to enum variant names.
  • -f, --funcxform: applied to function names.
  • -s, --nsxform: applied to namespace names.

  Each of these parameters may take one of the following values:

  • default: the default transform for the language will be applied.
  • identity: the name will be copied verbatim into the generated code.
  • lowsnake: the name will be transformed to lower_snake_case.
  • upsnake: the name will be transformed to UPPER_SNAKE_CASE.
  • lowcamel: the name will be transformed to lowerCamelCase.
  • upcamel: the name will be transformed to UpperCamelCase.

Exit Status

The command-line compiler exits with status 0 if the compilation succeeds. If the compilation fails, it exits with a non-zero status, after having removed all generated temporary files.

See Also

Depending on how you are willing to use PHiLe, you may be looking for…

• The Tutorial. This gets you started quickly and painlessly with writing schemas and queries in PHiLe's domain-specific language.
• The Examples. Check out these code snippets if you learn easier by example.
• The Reference. Search through this document if you are already familiar with the basics and you are now looking for the details of a specific feature.
• API documentation for the phile library, useful when you want to embed PHiLe into your own Rust programs.