After the Role and TokenRole hierarchies were removed, the Roles class no
longer held any roles -- only the punctuation and keyword text the output
visitor writes (LPar, Arrow, ClassKeyword, ...). The name was a misleading
vestige of the deleted system. Rename it to Tokens, which is what it now
is; the constants and their values are unchanged.
Also refresh the CSharpSlotInfo doc, which still described slot identity as
the successor to the removed node.Role == Roles.X comparison.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
A slot kind names one child position, so the generator emits a single
typed Slots.X constant for it. A kind used with two different child types
had to widen that constant to AstNode, and the typed GetChildren<T>
accessor then cast the live AstNodeCollection<Concrete> to
AstNodeCollection<AstNode> -- an InvalidCastException waiting for the
first caller (latent today, but the model permitted it).
Make the loose state unrepresentable instead of guarding it at runtime:
DSTG001 errors when a [Slot] kind is declared with more than one child
type. The six kinds that only coincidentally shared a name (Body, True,
False, Initializer, SwitchSection, Variable) are split into precisely
typed kinds; a genuinely either/or position (a lambda body) stays one
declared type, AstNode. Every Slots.X now carries its real element type,
so the GetChildren cast can no longer fail.
Output is unchanged: the Pretty suite stays byte-identical with
CheckInvariant green in DEBUG.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The slot kind is now the canonical typed CSharpSlotInfo<T> in Slots, matched by
object identity (the IL SlotInfo model), instead of a parallel SlotKind enum.
CSharpSlotInfo.Kind points at the canonical shared slot; a Slots constant is its
own kind (null Kind, never read -- only per-node slots are asked for their kind),
so there is no self-reference. Child access (GetChild/GetChildren/SetChild,
GetCollectionByKind, AddChild/InsertChild) and the polymorphic
node.Slot.Kind == Slots.X comparisons key on the canonical reference; the
generated SlotKind enum is removed. No behavior change.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The generator emits a Slots holder of typed CSharpSlotInfo<T> kind constants (T is
the child type, widened to AstNode for the few kinds reused with several child
types). Call sites whose kind maps to a single type switch from
GetChildByRole<T>(SlotKind.X) to GetChild(Slots.X), inferring the result type from
the slot. The ByRole methods and SlotKind remain for the multi-type Attribute
accessor and the internal add/insert plumbing, removed in following steps.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The C# syntax tree's name accessors (ParameterDeclaration.Name, GotoStatement.Label,
catch variable, query continuations, ...) are convenience strings over a backing Identifier
token. Names that may be absent are now typed string? and read as null when absent, instead of
a non-null empty-string sentinel; required names stay non-null string. The backing token slot's
nullability follows, and an empty or null assignment clears the token (empty == absent).
Because the property type now carries optionality, the separate [NameSlot] attribute and its
nullOnEmpty flag are redundant: a [Slot] on a string property is a name (child slots are
AstNode-typed, so the type disambiguates), and the generator infers optionality from the
declared nullable annotation -- which a string? declaration already requires #nullable for. The
repeated empty-to-null setter body becomes Identifier.CreateIfNotEmpty. To make the annotation
readable, #nullable enable is turned on across the syntax node files (the directive the inferred
optionality depends on), with the attendant local nullability fixups. Consumers that feed a name
into a non-null slot assert it where the variable structurally has a name.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
GetChildByRole<T> returned default! while it can legitimately yield null (empty slot
or a kind the node does not declare); it now returns T?. Callers that already null-checked
are unchanged; the few that rely on a structural guarantee (name tokens, label identifier,
property accessors) now state it with an explicit !, and MethodDeclaration drops a redundant
cast that the lie required.
Also removes two members left dead by the Role removal: the AddAnnotation override that
only forwarded to the base, and GetCSharpNodeBefore, which ignored 'this' and had no callers.
On the output path, GetChildNodes() allocates a snapshot List per call; the read-only
.Children traversals that never mutate the tree now walk the live FirstChild/NextSibling chain
(O(n), allocation-free, since child indices are cached), an EmptyStatement child check uses
HasChildren, and the label-statement sibling scan breaks on the first match instead of walking
to the end of the block. The generated GetChildNodes snapshot is kept where traversal may mutate.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Turn on #nullable enable across the AST consumer layer: the output visitor, the
IL-to-C# builders (statement, call and expression builders, CSharpDecompiler,
TypeSystemAstBuilder), the translation-result wrappers, the sequence-point and
required-namespace collectors, and the annotation helpers. Optional inputs,
fields and returns are typed nullable, detector out-parameters use
[NotNullWhen(true)], and structurally-guaranteed dereferences use the
null-forgiving operator. A few public parameters that already tolerate null are
widened to match their downstream callers. The annotations emit no IL, so the
Pretty suite stays byte-identical.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The [Slot] and [NameSlot] string argument only feeds SlotKind derivation, which
takes the last dotted segment and strips a trailing "Role", so the Roles.
qualifier and the Role suffix were dead decoration. Rewrite each to the bare
SlotKind it already produces, so the attribute reads as exactly the kind.
Collapse the runs of consecutive blank lines that removing the hand-written
constructors, fields and properties left between the remaining members.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The decompiler never emits "delegate () {}" (an explicit empty parameter
list) -- it produces "delegate {}" when there are no parameters and
"delegate (...) {}" when there are -- so HasParameterList always equalled
Parameters.Any(). Drop the property, its backing field and the two setter
calls, and read Parameters.Any() directly at the printer and the
resolve-result builder.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
TokenRole was a printer-side descriptor whose only jobs were holding a token's
text and giving the writers an identity to single out specific tokens. The text
becomes plain const strings on the nodes, and the few identity checks are
reexpressed as node-stack context: interpolation braces are recognized by an
Interpolation on the writer's stack, record class versus struct coloring keys
off TypeDeclaration.ClassType, and the accessor/this/base/override cases fall
out of the surrounding node. WriteKeyword/WriteToken drop the descriptor
parameter. The constants are named for what the token is: a keyword, a symbol
token, or a modifier.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Slot identity already lived in node.Slot/CSharpSlotInfo/SlotKind after
the storage flip, so the parallel Role/Role<T> child model was redundant.
The Role-keyed mutation/query API is reexpressed over SlotKind, and the
role-index packing on AstNode flags is gone.
Because a node's Slot is now derived from its index in its parent rather
than stored on the child, the located-AST reattach in
InsertMissingTokensDecorator must capture the child's slot kind before
Remove() detaches it.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
With every optional slot nullable, the null-object pattern is dead. Generated
non-nullable getters return the backing field directly, which surfaced a last
tier of slots the decompiler legitimately leaves empty (omitted range operands,
an implicitly-typed array creation, unnamed parameters, an unbound generic
argument, and others) and flips them to nullable too. The machinery is then
removed entirely: the per-node null classes, the .Null statics and
VisitNullNode, AstNode.IsNull, the role null object, and Identifier.Null.
AcceptVisitor becomes unconditionally generated, and consumers move from
.IsNull to is null and from unconditional visits to ?.AcceptVisitor.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Optional single-child slots return T? with a real null instead of a role
null-object, taking the C# grammar as the oracle for which slots are optional.
The generator emits the property type as T? and matches it with MatchOptional,
and consumers move from .IsNull to is null / ?.. This covers the optional
statement, member, try-catch, creation-initializer and pattern slots and the
optional NameSlot tokens. A few slots the grammar marks required but the
decompiler legitimately leaves empty (the implicit-element-access target, an
implicitly-typed lambda parameter's type) are flipped to nullable as well.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
A [NameSlot("role")] partial string property makes the generator own the
backing Identifier token slot, the string accessor, and the match term, so a
convenience name string and its hand-written token slot collapse to a single
declaration. A nullOnEmpty option stores a null token for an empty name, used
where the output visitor keys off an absent token. Apply it across every
name-token node.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
NodeType was NRefactory's coarse node category, but only three reads remained
here: two checks now expressed as "is not Trivia" and one debug assert for the
pattern category. Remove the enum, the abstract property, every per-node
override, and the generator's emission, preserving the pattern-placeholder case
through an IPatternPlaceholder marker interface the output-visitor assert
checks. Also remove the unused PrimitiveExpression.AdvanceLocation helper.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The token writers and the UI syntax highlighter only need a token's identity (to
single out structural braces, the constructor this/base keyword, the override
modifier, and to colour keywords) -- not the AST child-role machinery. Make
TokenRole a standalone printer-side descriptor instead of a Role, turn the
modifier marker into a TokenRole, and change the WriteKeyword/WriteToken
signatures from Role to TokenRole across the writer hierarchy and the highlighter.
This lets the child Role hierarchy be removed without disturbing token output.
The dead OptionalComma/OptionalSemicolon bodies (no comma/semicolon/whitespace
children exist since the token drop) become no-ops, and the few sites that handed
the writer a child role for a keyword now pass none. Output is unchanged across
the decompiler suite, and the UI builds.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Introduce the successor to node.Role for child-slot identity: the generator
emits a CSharpSlotInfo per [Slot], exposed as node.Slot, plus a shared SlotKind
enum for the polymorphic "is this node in an embedded-statement / condition /
base-type slot?" comparisons a per-node identity cannot express. Migrate the
printer and transform position checks from node.Role to node.Slot and
node.Slot.Kind, and read identifier children and role-keyed writes through the
typed properties. Role is still present and is removed later; output is
unchanged.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Comments and preprocessor directives were positional children interleaved
into the child list, and punctuation, keywords and operators were token-node
children. Add a leading/trailing trivia side-channel for comments and
directives, emit it from the output visitor, and re-home every comment
receiver onto it (including inside-block comments as comment-only empty
statements and undecodable attribute arguments as an ErrorExpression). With
locations and sequence points no longer sourced from token nodes, stop
reconstructing them on the locations path and delete CSharpTokenNode,
CSharpModifierToken and InsertSpecialsDecorator. The AST no longer carries
token children or positional comments; output is byte-identical.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Member and local modifiers were stored as modifier token children, and a
ComposedType's ref/readonly/nullable/pointer specifiers and an array rank as
token and comma children. The output visitor already derived all of these
from scalar accessors, so move them to plain enum/bool/int fields. This
removes another dependency on token children ahead of deleting the token
nodes; the emitted keyword and specifier sequences are unchanged.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Various improvements regarding primary constructor decompilation, including:
- introduce `HasPrimaryConstructor` property in the AST, as there is a difference between no primary constructor and a parameterless primary constructor
- improved support for inherited records and forwarded ctor calls
- exclude non-public fields and properties in IsPrintedMember
- introduce an option to always make the decompiler emit primary constructors, when possible
Siegfried Pammer
Daniel Grunwald