Re[4]: [higgins-dev] build: what are these files?

[Valery Kokhan <vkokhan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Ok, so it sounds like you are saying we do need to keep
> build.properties up to date and that the list of jars in there might
> need to be different from (or the same as) the list in MANIFEST.MF. 
> Further, it sounds like build.properties is not auto-generated, so
> we need to keep these up to date by hand.

Yes, it is not auto-generated file but it is required by any Eclipse
plugin's project, so we need to keep it up to date by hand.

> At what point will things fail if these are not kept current?  I
> note that I can delete them and still build projects.

It will fail at runtime only (either when plugin will be loaded by
eclipse runtime or later when it will try to access missing classes).

> So, I infer from what you're saying that the process of building
> the plugin jar file will place any jar listed in build.properties
> into the plugin jar.  I'm probably missing something, but I don't
> see in pluginBuilder.xml where this happens.

> In any case, is it possible to move this information into
> MANIFEST.MF so we only have one location where we have to update dependencies?

What pluginBuilder.xml actually do is just copy (and modify a bit)
actual build files from eclipse runtime and then just run them. Also
it generates several files (like build.properties and feature.xml)
required by eclipse build files to run properly. All the work to build
plugin's code and place any jar listed in build.properties file from
the plugin project (don't mix up with the generated one) into the
plugin jar is performed by those eclipse build files.

In general it is possible to generate build.properties file for plugin
project to be consistent with MANIFEST.MF but I'd rather consider this
as optional feature of generation of build.xml because as I said
earlier plugin project could be designed to reuse some libraries from
another plugins.

> Jim
>  
>>>> Valery Kokhan <vkokhan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 10/13/07 3:49 PM >>> 
>> I did look at build.properties from that view, and that's when I
>> noticed they were out of date.  The Bundle-Classpath in the manifest
>> has up-to-date jar dependencies, while the list in build.properties
>> was rather old and was only a subset of what was in the Bundle-Classpath.

> build.properties defines all jars which plugin should contains (to use
> at runtime) but it is not a requirement for Eclipse plugins to
> contains all the jars required (to build it) - it could depends on
> another plugin which already contains missing jars and exports
> packages from them.

>> I see that the pluginBuilder auto-generates some build.properties, but in a temp.dir.

> It is another story... That build.properties is very specific for
> plugin build process and have no relation to build.properties from the
> project at all.

>> Are we sure that the build.properties found at the root of our
>> projects is still used?  If so, do we need to bring them up to date
>> with what's in our manifest files?

>> Jim
>>  
>>>>> Valery Kokhan <vkokhan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 10/13/07 3:01 PM >>> 
>> Jim,

>> If you open plugin's manifest (either "META-INF\MANIFEST.MF" or
>> "plugin.xml") file in the Eclipse IDE to edit plugin's properties
>> you'll see build.properties as one of the tabs there.

>> So, "build.properties" is a Eclipse plugin specific file which (along
>> with "META-INF\MANIFEST.MF" and\or "plugin.xml" files) contains all the
>> information required to build Eclipse plugin.

>> As for buildaux.xml.old_ files they actually could be removed now -
>> they are just renamed buildaux.xml files which we used before started
>> to generate them.

>> Valery

>> Saturday, October 13, 2007, 11:12:53 PM, you wrote:

>>> nearly every project has a "build.properties" and "buildaux.xml.old_"

>>> Do these serve any purpose? If not let's delete them -- they only
>>> serve to confuse the person trying to get their head around the already confusing build process.

>>> _______________________________________________
>>> higgins-dev mailing list
>>> higgins-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/higgins-dev