CodelanxLib <img src="https://api.travis-ci.org/CodeLanx/CodelanxLib.svg" >

Library for Codelanx plugins. Public use is allowed, but must be credited.

Table of contents

• Commands
• Plugin Files
  • Config System
  • Lang Files
• Data Types
  • FileDataType
  • SQLDataType
  • Concrete Implementations
• Economy
• Implementers
• Inventory
  • Interfaces
• Listeners
• Logging
• Permissions
• Serializable classes
• Utility Classes
  • Auth
  • Coverage - Deprecated, will be remade in version 0.3.0
  • Exceptions
  • Inventory
  • Number
  • Time
  • Utility Classes
    • Blocks
    • Cache
    • Databases
    • Paginator
    • Players
    • Protections
    • RNG (Random number generators)
    • Reflections
    • Scheduler
• Outline
  • Events
  • Internal Classes
  • Legal

## Commands

Note: This section is now obsolete with the introduction of the new command system being introduced in the 0.1.0 release

Overall, you will only be dealing with three classes when making commands, and most/nearly all of the implementation for this is up to you as the developer. Those classes are:

• CommandHandler - Documentation
• CommandStatus - Documentation
• SubCommand - Documentation

A CommandHandler is an object that will handle a specific command in your plugin. For instance, let's say we had a channel plugin for chat, we could make our "channel" CommandHandler like so:

Plugin p = /* our main plugin instance */;
CommandHandler channel = new CommandHandler(p, "channel", true);

Great! That starts us off with a basic CommandHandler. This seems relatively simple, but under the hood a lot just happened. For starters, there are two reserved SubCommand classes that universally fill a specific purpose:

• HelpCommand - Documentation
• ReloadCommand - Documentation

What these commands do (if it isn't immediately obvious) is covered in the documentation for both of the classes. If you wish to unregister these commands from your handler so as to not allow reloading or help output from that specific command, you can use CommandHandler#unregister(String). Continuing off our channel example:

channel.unregister("help"); //Note: 'channel' is a CommandHandler
channel.unregister("reload");

Additionally, upon our original construction of the CommandHandler, we can specify that we do not want these classes automatically registered via the boolean that is passed:

CommandHandler channel = new CommandHandler(p, "channel", false); //false, will not register

Now that we have our CommandHandler, we should add our own SubCommands! Say we want to have a command that allows a person to join a chat channel. The syntax, for our purposes, will be something like /channel join <channel>. To start, let's define our SubCommand:

public class JoinCommand extends SubCommand<MyChannelPlugin> {

    public JoinCommand(MyChannelPlugin plugin, CommandHandler handler) {
        super(plugin, handler);
    }

}

Firstly, let's fill out the two simplest methods first for our command:

    @Override
    public String getName() {
        return "join"; //This is the first argument for "channel", our subcommand's specific name
    }

    @Override
    public Lang info() {
        return Lang.createLang("Allows players to join a channel"); //We get to this later in the plugin file section!
    }

If you're confused about the Lang part here, don't fret! It's completely covered under the Lang section of this readme. Note that you wouldn't want to have a call to Lang#createLang(String) in a production environment for this method, but for now it helps convey the purpose.

Something that the SubCommand class also has is a method for usage, however this isn't something you always have to override. By default, the usage printed will be /<main-command> <subcommand-name>, however if you remember we want to add a new argument for channel name, per /channel join <channel>, so let's do that now:

    @Override
    public String getUsage() {
        return super.getUsage() + " <channel>";
    }

And with that, it will now always return with the extra <channel> on the end of the usage for our subcommand!

Now we're left with the real meat of what your SubCommand class will be doing. For the purposes of this example, our class will have a Set<String> channels field which specifies which channels we can join.

For starters, we should fill in the tab completion so that players have an easier time tab-completing our commands. That, and it's just cool to have!

    @Override
    public List<String> tabComplete(CommandSender sender, String... args) {
        //From here, we need to return a list based on what has already been typed
        //The main command and the subcommand name are not included in our arguments array!
        if (args.length < 1) { //Empty arguments
            //Return our available channels
            return new ArrayList<>(this.channels);
        } else if (args.length == 1) { //potentially auto-completing a word
            //only return channels that start with the argument
            return this.channels.stream().filter(c -> c.startsWith(args[0])).collect(Collectors.toList());
        }
        return new ArrayList<>(); //catch-all, we don't have anything to provide
    }

Great! Now our command will auto-complete for anyone who attempts to tab a channel name. All this leaves us now is to implement the actual command execution. Remember that the concept of returning a boolean no longer exists in SubCommand objects, we use the CommandStatus enum to specify how the plugin will react to your command execution.

    @Override
    public CommandStatus execute(CommandSender sender, String... args) {
        if (!(sender instanceof Player)) {
            return CommandStatus.PLAYER_ONLY; //Only players use channels
        }
        //The main command and the subcommand name are not included in our arguments array!
        if (args.length < 1) { //Empty arguments
            return CommandStatus.BAD_ARGS;
        }
        if (!this.channels.contains(args[0])) { //Make sure channel exists
            sender.sendMessage("That channel does not exist!");
            return CommandStatus.SUCCESS; //Success? That seems odd... Explained below!
        }
        //At this point, we've confirmed the channel exists, and the sender is a player
        if (!sender.hasPermission("myplugin.channels." + args[0])) {
            //Hey! They can't join that channel!
            return CommandStatus.NO_PERMISSION;
        }
        //Let's presume the main plugin has a #joinChannel(Player, String) method
        this.plugin.joinChannel((Player) sender, args[0]);
        return CommandStatus.SUCCESS;
    }

And there you have it! You now have a complete SubCommand (to which I've placed at the bottom of this section). All you need to do now is register your SubCommand when you make your CommandHandler:

Plugin p = /* our main plugin instance */;
CommandHandler channel = new CommandHandler(p, "channel", true);
channel.register(new JoinCommand<>(p, channel)); //Can pass multiple new SubCommand objects

But why did you return CommandStatus#SUCCESS when the channel didn't exist?

The thing about CommandStatus#SUCCESS and CommandStatus#FAILED is that it has nothing to do with the actual context of the command itself. When you reached the point where your command recognized the channel didn't exist, and sent a message to the player in response to that, you successfully handled that situation. If you were to have a totally different situation, say doing file I/O:

File f = /* some file */;
try {
    f.createNewFile();
} catch (Exception ex) {
    //The file can't be made, we have no way to recover from this exception :(
    return CommandStatus.FAILED;
}

Notice here that our problem isn't that the user provided bad input, but rather that our code ran into a problem while attempting to execute, and we no longer have a reasonable way to continue. This is almost exclusively the case with exceptions, but it may come up in other contexts.

And lastly, here is our completed SubCommand!

public class JoinCommand extends SubCommand<MyChannelPlugin> {

    private final Set<String> channels = new HashSet<>(); //Our channels

    public JoinCommand(MyChannelPlugin plugin, CommandHandler handler) {
        super(plugin, handler);
        this.channels.addAll(plugin.getChannelNames()); //Pretend method
    }

    @Override
    public CommandStatus execute(CommandSender sender, String... args) {
        if (!(sender instanceof Player)) {
            return CommandStatus.PLAYER_ONLY; //Only players use channels
        }
        //The main command and the subcommand name are not included in our arguments array!
        if (args.length < 1) { //Empty arguments
            return CommandStatus.BAD_ARGS;
        }
        if (!this.channels.contains(args[0])) { //Make sure channel exists
            sender.sendMessage("That channel does not exist!");
            return CommandStatus.SUCCESS; //You thought I copy/pasted every line didn't you?
        }
        //At this point, we've confirmed the channel exists, and the sender is a player
        if (!sender.hasPermission("myplugin.channels." + args[0])) {
            //Hey! They can't join that channel!
            return CommandStatus.NO_PERMISSION;
        }
        //Let's presume the main plugin has a #joinChannel(Player, String) method
        this.plugin.joinChannel((Player) sender, args[0]);
        return CommandStatus.SUCCESS;
    }

    @Override
    public List<String> tabComplete(CommandSender sender, String... args) {
        //From here, we need to return a list based on what has already been typed
        //The main command and the subcommand name are not included in our arguments array!
        if (args.length < 1) { //Empty arguments
            //Return our available channels
            return new ArrayList<>(this.channels);
        } else if (args.length == 1) { //potentially auto-completing a word
            //only return channels that start with the argument
            return this.channels.stream().filter(c -> c.startsWith(args[0])).collect(Collectors.toList());
        }
        return new ArrayList<>(); //catch-all, we don't have anything to provide
    }

    @Override
    public String getUsage() {
        return super.getUsage() + " <channel>";
    }

    @Override
    public String getName() {
        return "join"; //This is the first argument for "channel", our subcommand's specific name
    }

    @Override
    public Lang info() {
        return Lang.createLang("Allows players to join a channel"); //We get to this later in the plugin file section!
    }

}

## Plugin Files

Plugin files are the foundation of building interfaces to be applied for interacting with a flat-file format. As of the current release, there are two provided interfaces that use this, which are the Config and Lang interfaces.

Typically, the PluginFile interface should be applied to an enum, to allow for specifying multiple file keys within a single class file. The interface is completely legal to apply to a class instead, however if it is applied to a class, then the class must implement the Iterable interface from Java 8 in order for PluginFile#init(Class<T extends FileDataType>) to work. The easiest way to think about it is that a PluginFile in reality specifies only a single value of a file, which is why a multi-instance class such as an enum helps to specify everything at once.

Lastly, a PluginFile needs to have two class-level annotations: PluginClass and RelativePath. The PluginClass annotation simply needs a reference to your main class, and RelativePath specifies the name and location of the file that the implementing PluginFile uses.

At the heart of an implementation for PluginFile, what you as a user will be dealing with is something like this:

@PluginClass(MyPlugin.class) //Pass your main class
@RelativePath("some-file.yml") //The location of your file in the plugin folder
public enum MyPluginFile implements PluginFile {

    EXAMPLE_STRING("example.string", "Hello world!"),
    EXAMPLE_INT("example.int", 42),
    EXAMPLE_DOUBLE("example.double", 3.14),
    EXAMPLE_LIST("example.list", new ArrayList<>());

    private static final DataHolder<Yaml> DATA = new DataHolder<>(Yaml.class); //FileDataType, you'll see this later!
    private final String path;
    private final Object def;

    /**
     * Enum Constructor, stores the keys and default values for the PluginFile
     */
    private MyPluginFile(String path, Object def) {
        this.path = path;
        this.def = def;
    }

    @Override
    public String getPath() {
        return this.path;
    }

    @Override
    public Object getDefault() {
        return this.def;
    }

    @Override
    public DataHolder<Yaml> getData() {
        return DATA;
    }

}

With this, you have defined the basic structure of all PluginFile objects. However, you rarely apply the PluginFile interface directly to an enum, as this does not carry much functionality at all. This is where the Config and Lang interfaces that are provided come into play.

### Configuration Files (Config)

As you saw in the PluginFile specifications, PluginFile can be extended into other interfaces to add functionality to the file. Config is one of these interfaces, and to specify an enum as a Config you merely have to change the class declaration from:

public enum MyPluginFile implements PluginFile {

To:

public enum MyPluginFile implements Config {

And like magic, your plugin file now has all the methods it needs to be used as a config file. With this, some new methods are automatically added to your class:

• Config#as(Class<T>)

This is the main method that you will be dealing with when using the Config interface. If we look at our earlier example for MyPluginFile, we see that we're able to reference multiple Config values by specifying which enum constant we want to use. So if we wanted to retrieve some values:

double answer = MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_DOUBLE.as(double.class); //Retrieve a double
String hello = MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING.as(String.class); //Retrieve a String

With this, we have added a fundamental separation of config management and data retrieval. Config values usually need to be retrieved often and continually chaining up or down a reference chain to get from your current context to your plugin and back to a config manager turns into an unmanageable hassle.

• Config#get() and Config#set(Object)

On a lower level, these methods are for directly interfacing with the underlying FileDataType for the Config being referred to. In general, you won't use Config#get() directly, as this returns a raw Object that requires casting which can already be done through the as method (which has additional safety checks in place). As for set(Object), it's fairly self-explanatory:

String example = "Mashed Potatoes";
Config val = MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING;
val.set(example);
System.out.println(val.as(String.class)); //Prints "Mashed Potatoes"

//Simplified
MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING.set("Mashed Potatoes");

Something to note is that information that is inserted via #set(Object) will not change the file that the Config is based off of, due to the way that underlying implementations of FileDataType work. In order to save set values to the file, you will need to call the PluginFile#save() method on the config. In this area, the call for this is slightly awkward when utilizing an enum, as you need to have an instance to refer to rather than a static call (this is a limitation of java):

MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING.save();

While EXAMPLE_STRING was used, the entire file is actually saved in this call.

• Config#retrieve(FileDataType, Config) and Config#retrieve(FileDataType)

Sometimes, a Config should actually relate to more than one file. For this, methods are provided to retrieve an anonymous/dynamic Config value which uses the passed data type with the paths and defaults of the relevant Config value that was already in use. What's nice about the abstraction with FileDataType here is that you are able to apply Config values across different types of files. For example:

Json json = /* a JSON file we need data from */;
//Retrieve the EXAMPLE_STRING from the json file
String val = MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING.retrieve(json).as(String.class);

The Config#retrieve(FileDataType) actually just calls the static method Config#retrieve(FileDataType, Config) with the current config context, which returns an anonymous Config class containing the relevant information for Config to internally handle retrieving values. So in essence, the above example can easily be written as:

String val = Config.retrieve(json, MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING).as(String.class);

This is useful for when you have a method which accepts a Config parameter and don't wish to call upon the specific config value directly. This is a bit more advanced, and won't actually be applicable until Java 9 is released (due to type erasure being removed), but if you want to cast to the appropriate type, and can assume that the default supplied by the unknown Config value isn't null, you can automatically retrieve the value like so:

public void doSomething(Config value) {
    //Because we don't know the type
    SomeObject val = value.as(value.getDefault().getClass());
}

At which point in time a Config#cast() method might be added, however this is much more into the realm of theory than actual implementations yet.

### Language Files (Lang)

We've now seen both the PluginFile interface, as well as one of its extending interfaces (Config). However CodelanxLib provides a second interface that extends PluginFile specifically for the purpose of string externalization and CommandSender messaging. To implement, simply swap the PluginFile interface with the Lang interface, just like you did before with configs:

public enum MyPluginFile implements Lang {

You now have a Lang enum, which adds some slightly different functionality to your PluginFile. PluginFile#getDefault() is now overridden, as Lang files only map strings to other strings, therefore the default value should always be a string. In this specific scenario, I'm going to redefine some things from the previous MyPluginFile example:

@PluginClass(MyPlugin.class) //Pass your main class
@RelativePath("some-file.yml") //The location of your file in the plugin folder
public enum MyPluginFile implements Lang {

    EXAMPLE_STRING("example.string", "Hello world!"),
    EXAMPLE_ARGS("example.with-args", "This is a %s"),
    EXAMPLE_MONEY("example.money", "Your balance is $%.2f"),
    /**
     * By contract, a format should only have a single '%s' token, which is
     * where all messages that are sent will be placed
     */
    FORMAT("format", "[&9MyAwesomePlugin&f] %s");

    private static final DataHolder<Yaml> DATA = new DataHolder<>(Yaml.class); //Note you can use other FileDataTypes
    private final String path;
    private final String def;

    /**
     * Enum Constructor, stores the keys and default values for the PluginFile
     */
    private MyPluginFile(String path, String def) {
        this.path = path;
        this.def = def;
    }

    @Override
    public String getPath() {
        return this.path;
    }

    @Override
    public String getDefault() { //Notice the return value has changed to String
        return this.def;
    }

    @Override
    public Lang getFormat() { //A new method we need to override
        return MyPluginFile.FORMAT; //Returning our format for output
    }

    @Override
    public DataHolder<Yaml> getData() {
        return MyPluginFile.DATA;
    }

}

Lang takes Formatter arguments, which are synonymous with C/C++'s printf tokens. To see these in action:

CommandSender sender = /* our CommandSender (or player, etc) */;
Lang.sendMessage(sender, MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING); //Message sent!

//Replacing the %s token with a string
Lang.sendMessage(sender, MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_ARGS, "test"); //Sends "This is a test"
Lang.sendMessage(sender, MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_ARGS, "unicorn enchilada"); //Sends "This is a unicorn enchilada"

//Formatting money (useful with Vault!)
double money = 42D;
Lang.sendMessage(sender, MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_MONEY, money); //Sends "Your balance is $42.00"

Note that because Formatter/printf are incredibly unforgiving in mismatched or missing tokens/arguments, you should be very careful that you always have the correct amount of both. In a single-plugin scenario, this is fairly easy, but since you're allowing people to modify the lang by using this, you're opening them to the possibility of messing up the plugin. If you want to proactively monitor the values of all your Lang strings, then you can override the Lang#value() method:

Re-implementing Lang#value():

@Override
public String value() {
    String format = Lang.super.value(); //Retrieve what we will work with
    //Verify/Modify the contents of "format" here (or throw an exception), and then
    return format; //Return the appropriate string
}

In reality, you won't end up using Lang for much more than what is described above. However, for methods not shown above:

• Lang#color(String)

You might be familiar with the method:

String myString = /* some string with color codes */;
myString = ChatColor.translateAlternateColorCodes('&', myString);

This method is exhausting to write for such a simple operation as swapping color codes. For this, Lang#color(String) is provided as a façade for exactly that method:

public static String color(String color) {
    return ChatColor.translateAlternateColorCodes('&', color);
}

Seeing as most of the community is already familiar with the & symbol being used for color, the method automatically assumes that is what you're translating. For all other purposes that need a different character, ChatColor should be used.

• Lang#createLang(String)

As we saw with the Config interface, a way to retrieve an anonymous value of the interface helps a lot in situations where you need to dynamically create values, for which enums are not purposed to do. This is an extremely simple wrapping operation: The string you put in is the same value as the Lang that is returned:

CommandSender target = /* our message recipient */;
String value = "MazenMC lost his pet T-Rex";
Lang out = Lang.createLang(value);
Lang.sendMessage(target, out); //Sends "MazenMC lost his pet T-Rex"

This is relevant farther down the line when you begin to use Implementers, such as Economics to enable the use of CEconomy. A lot of implementers extend the implementer interface Formatted, meaning that they need to be able to retrieve a Lang object to use as a format for your messages, as those classes don't actually have any knowledge of your specific plugin! For more info on that, see the Formatted interface under the Implementers section.

• Lang#sendMessage(CommandSender, Lang, Lang, Object...)

This is a variation of the original Lang#sendMessage(CommandSender, Lang, Object...) that you saw earlier in the examples. However, instead of using the default format provided by the Lang that you pass in, it will use the first Lang argument as the actual format. So in practice:

CommandSender sender = /* our message recipient */;
Lang ourNewFormat = Lang.createLang("[&4Tacos&f] %s");
Lang.sendMessage(sender, MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING); //Encodes and prints "[&9MyAwesomePlugin&f] Hello World!"
Lang.sendMessage(sender, ourNewFormat, MyPluginFile.EXAMPLE_STRING); //Encodes and prints "[&4Tacos&f] Hello World!"

This is much more useful for when you have plugin inheritence, and one plugin is essentially extending the usage. If you want to be additionally sneaky, you can use another Lang class's format as your own:

@Override
public Lang getFormat() {
    return SomeOtherLang.getFormat();
}

## Outline

### Legal

Code copyright is a giant headache, which most people don't want to even think about (I sure don't). So, to make things simple, here's a brief summary of what you can, cannot, and must do under CodelanxLib's license:

The only discrepancy here, however, is that you cannot modify and distribute simultaneously. That is to say, if you modify the library, and proceed to distribute your modifications, you must label/publicize these modifications as your own, and not as the original library.