Upgrade antlr to version 4.x

[m0mus]

[bshannon]

We got a special exemption to allow us to use Antlr 2.x for Eclipse GlassFish 5.1,
but we need to upgrade to Antlr 3.x or newer for the subsequent release.
Antlr is used by the old EJB CMP support.

[oasuncion]

Hello,
I can see that this ticket was flagged 'help wanted' last November, let me know if I can help on this.
BR

[bshannon]

As far as I know, no one is working on this, so yes, we still need help. Thanks!

[oasuncion]

Ok, in this case I will have a look.
I will try to update to the last antlr available version (4.7.2), identify and update the impacted areas and perform some non-regression testings.
Any insight is appreciated (I am new to GlassFish and Antlr).
BR

[oasuncion]

Hi,
I did a test, upgrading the antlr dependency to 4.7.2.
I could update the grammar files taking into account the new syntax for parser/lexer definitions in Antlr 4, this part is fine.
The problem I am facing now is related to the Java code written in these files, intended to be part of the generated code. Changes between Antlr 2.x and 4.x are huge, most of this code doesn't compile anymore and it is often hard for me to see how to properly upgrade it as I am missing the initial intend of the code.
It would be better to have this ticket handled by someone with a knowledge of the initial work and of Antlr 4, so he may have a better idea of which part of code is not relevant anymore, which is still relevant, and in this case how to upgrade it.

[bshannon]

If only we had such a person!

All the people who did this work initially are gone.
We no longer have anyone who has a deep understanding of this code.
Someone is going to need to learn enough about this code to understand how to change it.

[smillidge]

Most of the antlr usage is in old cmp code. Do we still want that code? Is there anybody still using it?

[bshannon]

It's still required so that we have a complete implementation of all required
and optional Java EE / Jakarta EE APIs.

[github-actions]

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[pzygielo]

It's still at 2x:

glassfish/nucleus/parent/pom.xml

Line 144 in e0a2a1f

<antlr.version>2.7.8</antlr.version>

[arjantijms]

We probably want to make sure CMP gets actually pruned/removed instead of just made optional.