SARL Agent Programming Language

SARL is a general-purpose agent-oriented language, www.sarl.io.

SARL aims at providing the fundamental abstractions for dealing with concurrency, distribution, interaction, decentralization, reactivity, autonomy and dynamic reconfiguration. These high-level features are now considered as the major requirements for an easy and practical implementation of modern complex software applications. We are convinced that the agent-oriented paradigm holds the keys to effectively meet this challenge.

Considering the variety of existing approaches and meta-models in the field of agent-oriented engineering and more generally multi-agent systems, our approach remains as generic as possible and highly extensible to easily integrate new concepts and features. The language is platform- and architecture-independent.

However, we provide a first set of tools to support its execution based on the new version 2.0 of the Janus (see www.janusproject.io) platform, but it can be linked with other existing agent platforms and frameworks.

Build Status
Linux and OSX
Windows

Table of Contents

2. Requirements
3. Using SARL
4. P2 Repository
5. Issues
6. Contributions
7. Authors and Contributors
8. License of SARL
9. Success Stories

2. Requirements

Java Development Toolkit (JDK) 1.8 or higher.

3. Using SARL

3.1. Recommendations

For making your experience with SARL the best, we recommend you:

to enable the assertions at development time (with the -ea command line option).

3.2. Use the stable version with Maven

The lastest stable version of SARL is available on Maven Central. Consequently, you could directly include the SARL module into the Maven dependencies of your project:

	...
	<dependency>
	  <groupId>io.sarl.maven</groupId>
	  <artifactId>io.sarl.maven.sdk</artifactId>
	  <version>0.4.1</version>
	</dependency>
	...

Please, replace Version 0.4.1 in the previous snipset by the number of the version you want to use.

3.3. Use of the development version with Maven

New features, enhancements and bug fixes are available in the SNAPSHOT (development) version of SARL. For using this version, you must add the Maven Repository Server of SARL in your pom file:

	...
	<dependencies>
	  <dependency>
	    <groupId>io.sarl.maven</groupId>
	    <artifactId>io.sarl.maven.sdk</artifactId>
	    <version>0.5.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
	  </dependency>
	<dependencies>
	...
	<repositories>
	  <repository>
	    <id>io.sarl-maven</id>
	    <name>SARL Snapshots</name>
	    <url>http://maven.sarl.io/</url>
	  </repository>
	</repositories>
	<pluginRepositories>
    	  <pluginRepository>
	    <id>io.sarl-maven</id>
	    <name>SARL Snapshots</name>
	    <url>http://maven.sarl.io/</url>
	    <snapshots>
	      <enabled>true</enabled>
	    </snapshots>
	  </pluginRepository>
	</pluginRepositories>
	...

3.4. Compile SARL code with Maven

For compiling SARL source files with Maven, you should use the provided plugin: sarl-maven-plugin. It invokes the SARL and Java compilers with a simpler interface than the standard Xtext maven plugin. For using the sarl-maven-plugin, you should add in your pom file:

	...
	<build>
	  <plugins>
	    <plugin>
	      <groupId>io.sarl.maven</groupId>
	      <artifactId>sarl-maven-plugin</artifactId>
	      <version>0.4.1</version>
	      <extensions>true</extensions>
	      <configuration>
	        <source>1.8</source>
	        <target>1.8</target>
	        <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
	      </configuration>
	    </plugin>
	    ...
	  </plugins>
	  ...
	</build>
	...

Please, replace Version 0.4.1 in the previous snipset by the number of the version you want to use.

Caution

Do not forget to set the extensions flag to true.

3.5. Syntax highlighting with other tools

Several style specifications are provided for syntax highlighting in third party tools. Style specifications are provided for:

4. P2 Repository

A P2 repository is set up and accesible at the address: updates.sarl.io.

5. Issues

Issues related to SARL are tracked on GitHub You must use this issue tracker to report and follow your issues.

6. Contributions

Any contribution to the SARL is welcome.

6.1. Installing the Development Environment

For setting up the development environment, you should follow the steps:

Caution

Coming soon.

6.2. Obtaining the SARL Source Code

For obtaining the code of SARL, you must clone it from the Git:

git clone https://github.com/sarl/sarl

Caution

Due to an issue in the Eclipse Checkstyle plugin, it is mandatory to install the build-tools module in the your .m2 repository prior to the first launch of the Eclipse IDE: mvn clean install -Dcheckstyle.skip=true

6.3. Compiling the SARL Source Code

Maven is the standard tool for compiling SARL. It is recommended to launch the Maven compilation process on the command at least before submitting a pull request. The command line is:

mvn clean install

6.4. Sending the Contribution

For sending your contribution to the SARL master repositoty, you must request a pull (PR) to the GitHub repository.

For being merged, your must ensure the following points:

Your PR must be compilable with Maven.
Your PR must pass the compilation process successfully, including the code compilation, unit tests, and code style checking. This process is supported by Travis-CI for linux and OSX platforms, and AppVeyor for Windows platforms.
You must sign the Contributor License Agreement on GitHub. It is supported by cla-assistant.
Your PR should be reviewed by one or more of the main contributors for ensure it is following the development rules and philosophy related to SARL.

The page of your PR on Github is displaying the status of your PR. If one point is failing, please follows the steps:

Go on the Travis-CI or AppVeyor console for obtaining the cause of the failure.
Fix the code of your PR on your local copy.
Commit on your local repository, compile, and test until you have fixed the issue.
Push the changes on the same PR with git push -f, i.e. the same Git repository as the one used for the PR. Do not create a new PR for the fix.
The GitHub platform will relaunch the CI process automatically.