Glossary¶

{ #glossary }

Stable ID: GLOSSARY

This glossary collects short definitions for domain-specific terms used across the documentation. Each entry links to the concept page that is the authoritative source of the definition.

A¶

Analysis¶

Extracts data from and computes information about a code base. See Analysis.

Ancestor¶

An AST node that contains another node within its subtree, at any depth, including the node itself. A proper ancestor excludes the node itself; the direct parent is the nearest proper ancestor.

Append¶

An insertion that adds text immediately after the end location of an AST node. See Rewrite semantics.

Around¶

See Surround.

AST (Abstract Syntax Tree)¶

A hierarchical representation of source code produced by a compiler front-end, abstracting over syntactic details such as whitespace, comments, and delimiters. See Matching.

Automation¶

Code-oriented processing that operates on the structure of source code rather than on raw text, and therefore requires parser integration. See Automation.

A collected modification to the original source text, either a replacement or an insertion. Changes are collected during the collect step of a rewrite step and applied during the commit step. See Rewrite semantics.

Code base¶

The full set of production, validation, and supporting artifacts — including source code, tests, build scripts, and documentation — that together constitute a software system. A code base is typically multi-language, multi-project, and evolves over decades. See Evolving and maintaining code.

Collection of changes¶

The act of registering one or more changes against a syntax tree during the collect step of a rewrite step, before any changes are committed. The sequence in which changes are registered is the collection order, which affects output ordering only when the same operator is applied multiple times to the same node. See Rewrite semantics.

Composition¶

Combining language-specific patterns with language-agnostic orchestration to form higher-level analysis or transformation strategies. See Composition.

CST (Concrete Syntax Tree)¶

A full parse tree that retains every syntactic token, including whitespace and comments. See Matching.

D¶

Descendant¶

An AST node contained within the subtree of another node, at any depth, including the node itself. A proper descendant excludes the node itself; the direct children are the nearest proper descendants.

Dominated change¶

A change whose range is a proper subset of the range of another change, and which is therefore silently ignored during the rewrite step. See Rewrite semantics.

F¶

Filter¶

A check applied to candidate matches that produces an include, remove, or undecisive result, thereby refining the match set before further processing. See Filter.

I¶

Insertion¶

A change that adds text at a location in the original source without removing any existing text. The supported insertion kinds are prepend, append, and surround. See Rewrite semantics.

Integration¶

A parser-specific bridge (e.g., tree-sitter, Clang, Python's ast module) that makes a parser's native nodes conform to the core AST node's Protocol, implemented as a wrapper, an adapter, or via duck typing. See ADR 14.

M¶

Match¶

An occurrence found in the source that satisfies the criteria of a pattern under a particular conceptual view. See Matching.

Matching¶

The process of locating occurrences in source code that satisfy a pattern, governed by a conceptual view that defines granularity, structure, classification, and equality. See Matching.

N¶

Node (AST node)¶

A single element in an AST, representing a syntactic construct such as a statement, expression, identifier, or punctuation token. Every node has a range in the original source text, defined by its start and end position. See Matching.

O¶

Observability¶

The degree to which the behavior of the tool can be inspected and described, supporting understanding and debugging of analysis and transformation results. See Observability.

P¶

Prepend¶

An insertion that adds text immediately before the start location of an AST node. See Rewrite semantics.

R¶

Range¶

A contiguous region of the original source text, expressed as a start and end offset. Every AST node has a range; the range of a replacement is derived from the range of the replaced node or sequence of nodes. See Rewrite semantics.

Recipe¶

A combination of multiple standard analyses and transformations (rules) applied in a coordinated way to perform a non-trivial refactoring; more powerful than a single find / filter / modify rule. See ADR 14.

Rejuvenation¶

A concrete, runnable application of Renaissance that evolves a code base in response to change, so that it keeps delivering value. That change originates from one of three sources:

the customer — e.g., additional or changed requirements;
the organization — e.g., business strategy, process, or structure (see the BAPO model: Business, Architecture, Process, Organisation); or
the environment — e.g., the language, dependency, library, OS, or tooling versions a code base relies on.

Transpilation (translating from one programming language to another) and migration (moving to a new language, dependency, or tooling version) are approaches used to respond to such change. See ADR 14.

Removal¶

A replacement where the replacement text is the empty string, effectively deleting the text of a source range. See Rewrite semantics.

Renaissance¶

The parser-agnostic core of the project: the unified AST model, match-pattern engine, rewriter, and other language- and parser-agnostic components. See ADR 14.

Replacement¶

A change that substitutes the text of a source range with new text. See Rewrite semantics.

Rewrite step¶

The sequential process of (1) parsing source code, (2) collecting changes, and (3) committing those changes to produce modified source code. See Rewrite semantics.

S¶

Sibling¶

Two AST nodes are siblings when they share the same direct parent. Adjacent siblings are consecutive children of the same parent node in the AST.

Standard analyses and transformations¶

A library of reusable, pre-built analysis and transformation building blocks that can be combined to improve quality and reduce duplication. See Standard analyses and transformations.

Surround¶

An insertion that adds text at both the start and end locations of an AST node simultaneously. The resulting order in the modified source is: surround_before_text, AST node text, surround_after_text. See Rewrite semantics.

T¶

Token¶

Smallest meaningful unit of code.

Transformation¶

Manipulating code using find / filter / manipulate workflows to produce modified source. See Transformation.

Trivia¶

White spaces and comments.