A blank line as the first line inside a node class body (right after the opening brace) or the
last line before the closing brace, left over from the migration. Cosmetic only -- deletions of blank
lines at class boundaries; method bodies are untouched.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The flags word existed to back per-node bit state, but its only user was Identifier.IsVerbatim,
and it was retained as the seed for a deferred flag-packing optimization. Measuring that optimization
showed it saves essentially nothing -- the CLR already packs a node's bools and narrow enums into the
object's existing alignment padding (ParameterDeclaration and BinaryOperatorExpression: 0 bytes saved
by hand-packing). So IsVerbatim becomes a plain bool (free, it lands in padding) and the flags field is
removed. Removing it shrinks every AstNode by 8 bytes -- the field occupied its own aligned slot rather
than pairing with childIndex as assumed (a minimal node measured 64 -> 56 bytes), a universal win across
the whole tree that the per-node packing never delivered.
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
Nodes use nullable reference types now, so the generated null-object
node and its hasNullNode / NeedsNullNode / NullNodeBaseCtorParamCount
plumbing are dead. Drop them and reword the affected comments.
The 124 concrete node classes that are neither a base of another node nor a
host for a generated PatternPlaceholder subclass are now sealed, so the JIT can
devirtualize the slot dispatch (GetChild, GetChildCount, GetChildSlotInfo,
GetChildNodes, AcceptVisitor) when the static type is the sealed leaf. Identifier's
constructor becomes private (protected is meaningless and an error in a sealed
type). Abstract bases, base classes (PreProcessorDirective, the EntityDeclaration/
AstType/Statement/Expression hierarchy roots), and pattern-placeholder hosts stay
open.
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
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
Delete source-fidelity state the decompiler never reads, since it generates
the AST and never parses: SyntaxTree.FileName/ConditionalSymbols/TopExpression,
Comment.StartsLine/IsDocumentation, the preprocessor line/file fields, and a
computed ComposedType flag. Hoist the duplicated start/end location storage
into the shared Trivia base, and drop the redundant per-instance Location field
on single-token leaf nodes in favor of the base's print-time location.
Generate DoMatch for the last nodes (Comment, SyntaxTree, the using and
namespace declarations, Identifier).
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The grammar-production doc comments were transcribed in ANTLR style and
often copied the C# spec verbatim, including sub-rules the AST does not
model. Rewrite them as W3C EBNF (::=, ?, *, +), unroll sub-productions
that are not themselves AST nodes (e.g. anonymous_function_modifier ->
'async'), and shape each production to the node's actual members. Render
top-level alternations of node productions as multi-line <code> blocks;
keep operator and keyword token lists inline.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Each concrete syntax node now carries, in an XML-doc <remarks> block, the
matching production from the C# language specification grammar (ECMA/Microsoft,
ANTLR notation), quoted verbatim. Aggregate nodes (e.g. BinaryOperatorExpression,
ComposedType, TypeDeclaration) list every production they span; lexical/trivia
nodes (Comment, the preprocessor directives, Identifier) cite the lexical rule.
Nodes with no spec production -- ErrorExpression, UndocumentedExpression,
InvocationAstType, TypeReferenceExpression, NamedExpression, DocumentationReference,
and the C# 14 ExtensionDeclaration -- carry a hand-written EBNF plus a note
explaining why no official production exists.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
The generator emits the IAstVisitor interface, the AcceptVisitor overloads,
and the null-node and pattern-placeholder nodes from [DecompilerAstNode]
declarations, so drop the hand-written equivalents across the C# AST: per-node
AcceptVisitor/DoMatch, the #region Null / #region PatternPlaceholder blocks,
IAstVisitor.cs, and now-dead usings. Also adds AccessorKind and moves
IdentifierExpressionBackreference into the PatternMatching folder.
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-4-8:Claude Code
Introduce a Roslyn source generator that emits the visitor boilerplate for
the C# AST from [DecompilerAstNode]-tagged node declarations: the
IAstVisitor interface, the AcceptVisitor overloads, the pattern-placeholder
nodes, and the initial DoMatch support. AccessorKind lets an accessor's
keyword be chosen independently of its role, an early step toward shedding
the NRefactory role model.
The C# AST inherited NRefactory's freezable model (IFreezable, Freeze,
IsFrozen, a frozen flag bit, and ThrowIfFrozen guards on every mutator),
but the decompiler never uses it: nothing calls Freeze(), not even the
generated null-node singletons, so every IsFrozen guard only ever
evaluated false. The decompiler is single-threaded and never shares or
freezes nodes. Remove the whole apparatus as preparation for the
slot-based AST rewrite, which has no place for it. Roles are untouched
here, so the flags word keeps its role index; only the freed frozen bit
goes away.
Siegfried Pammer
Peter Crabtree
dotnet format
Christoph Wille