Let's write CWL with Emacs!

Hi!

I need a good editor to write CWL.
Here are my requirements for good editor for CWL:

• syntax highlight
• on-the-fly syntax checking (if possible)

Therefore I developed cwl-mode to write CWL with Emacs.

How to install

Add MELPA repository for package.el

You can find cwl-mode in MELPA repository.
To add MELPA to your package repository, add the following code to init.el.

init.el

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
 '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") t)
(package-initialize)

Install cwl-mode

You can install it by M-x package-install cwl-mode.

(optional) Install Flycheck

Emacs can provide on-the-fly syntax checking for CWL after installing Flycheck.
You can install it by M-x package-install flycheck because it is also provided in MELPA repository.

Install syntax checking tools

CWL checker in Flycheck uses schema-salad-tool and CWL syntax definition written in SALAD format.

You can install schema-salad-tool from PyPI by using the following command.

$ pip install schema_salad

The syntax definition file is provided in CWL repository in Github.
This article uses the definition file that is bundled with cwltool, that is a reference implementation of workflow engine for CWL.

You can install it using the following command:

$ pip install cwltool

Set up CWL checker

Set the path for CommonWorkflowLanguage.yml to flycheck-cwl-schema-path.
Please fix the path for CommonWorkflowLanguage.yml if needed.

init.el

(setq flycheck-cwl-schema-path "/Users/tom-tan/.pyenv/versions/3.6.2/lib/python3.6/site-packages/cwltool/schemas/v1.0/CommonWorkflowLanguage.yml")

Done!

You can see the contents of CWL file highlighted when you open files whose names are ended with .cwl.
Also, your Emacs can provide on-the-fly syntax checking feature after you install Flycheck.
Have fun!

See also: Emacs でも CWL を編集したい！ (same article in Japanese)