Inheriting from Own class instead from XMLParserRuleContext - antlr4

Question

I am using the 'visitor' pattern to generate XML from my parsed code. On typical context class looks like:
public static class On_dtmContext extends ParserRuleContext {
public List<FieldContext> field() {
return getRuleContexts(FieldContext.class);
}
public TerminalNode ON() { return getToken(SRC_REP_SCREENParser.ON, 0); }
public On_dtm_headerContext on_dtm_header() {
return getRuleContext(On_dtm_headerContext.class,0);
}
.....
}
and I access the element in my visitors call back function using RuleContext's 'getText' member function.
I would like to write a class inheriting from 'ParserRuleContext' and overload 'getText' in order to replace characters like '<' or '>' with their xml escape sequences. Is there a way I can have my code generated and having the context classes inheriting from my class, as:
public static class On_dtmContext extends XMLParserRuleContext {
public List<FieldContext> field() {
return getRuleContexts(FieldContext.class);
}
public TerminalNode ON() { return getToken(SRC_REP_SCREENParser.ON, 0); }
public On_dtm_headerContext on_dtm_header() {
return getRuleContext(On_dtm_headerContext.class,0);
}
.....
}
Thank you for your help!
Kind regards, wolf

Answer 1

Is there a reason why you are trying to extend the class, rather than creating a parser rule in your grammar to capture < and > so you can translate them as they occur?
The parser rules would look something like:
lessThan
: '<'
;
greaterThan
: '>'
;
At that point, you would have specific visitors for each of those terms and could translate them as you will.