[UIMA-6382] Better alternative for CasCreationUtils

• Type: New Feature
• Status: Open
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: Core Java Framework
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Richard Eckart de Castilho
• Created: 15/Sep/21 07:34
• Updated: 15/Sep/21 07:37

Description

The CasCreationUtils class is the way of creating new CAS instances, but its signatures are becoming a bit unwieldy. E.g. we have a CasCreationUtils.createCas() to create a CAS without any type system definition and we have a CasCreationUtils.createCas(tsd, null, null, null) to create one with a type system definition and nothing really in between.

In would propose investigating a builder-like approach where we could write something like:

CAS cas = CAS.builder().withTypeSystem(tsd).build();

CAS cas = CAS.builder()
   .withDefinition(CasDefinition)
   .withTypeSystem(tsd) // overrides any maybe already set type system
   .addTypeSystem(tsd) // can be called multiple times
   .withTypePriorities(...) //  overrides any maybe already priorities
   .addTypePriorities(...) // can be called multiple times
   .withFsIndexes(...) // overrides any maybe already set index definitions
   .addFsIndexes(...) // can be called multiple times
   .addAnalysisEngineDescription(...) // can be called multiple times
   .addMetaDataObject(...) // can be called multiple times
   .withResourceManager(...)
   .withProperties(...)
   .withProperty(key, value) // can be called multiple times but should only be called once per key
   .build();