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
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
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
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