A short introduction to XAL

In this tutorial we will see how to create our first XAL application. Each XAL application is based on an automaton: we will learn how to define one during this tutorial.

In the following sections we simulate the entire application process: specification collections, design, development, test.

Before reading the tutorial you should download this file: AutomaInterpreter.zip. This archive contains the souce code of the XAL Interpreter and the application discussed in this tutorial. Following we examine the archive directory structure in order to describe the files to which we make reference:

• lib: this directory contains helper classes, XAL base interpreter and XAL Interpreter for interactive web application (such as our application), that is WebInterpreter class in WebInterpreter.php
• test: in this directory you find
  • index.php our XAL application entry point
  • DeliveryWeb.lib.php contains DeliveryWeb class; its methods are metric and action functions related to each automaton state
• xml: here you can find our automaton XML file description, DeliveryWeb.xml

If we are very curios and we want to test our XAL application before reading the tutorial we can run it immediately: DeliveryWeb.