[news.eclipse.platform.pde] Re: Trying to have automated PDE build for l

[Ivica Loncar <iloncar.mlIQTEST@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Mohamed,

> Hello,
>
> I am trying to setup an automated PDE build for a large RCP project,
> but I am getting a lot of issues.
>
> I have tried a smaller application with less dependencies and it
> worked fine.
>
> The main areas I am having issues with are:
> 1- Setting correct feature definitions for the product (I will post
> about
> this separately) but the question here. Is it required to have my
> product
> depends on featurs, or can it work with plugins? (I don't need p2
> update)

You can get away with plugins but I wouldn't recommend it. It will be 
easier if you use features. It's relatively easy to define features.
The only issue is that we have to update them when we change target platform.
Fortunately it doesn't happen very often so it's not a big problem.

> 2- Target Platform dependency
> I have setup my target platform in separate directories: 1 folder
> contains eclipse sdk, another contains delta-pack, another one contains 
CDT,
> other contains other plugins, ...

Same here. We have directory that represent target platform. It's structure 
looks like this:

workspace
 +-target_platform_project
    +- features
    +- plugins
    +- deltapack
    +- sources
        +-
    +- spring
        +- plugins
            +- ... springsource bundles ....
    +- slf4j
        +- jcl-over-slf4j
        +- .....
    +-hibernate
        +....
    +....

This directory layout can be built from an ant script or by hand and checked 
into the repository
(that's the easiest way to give common platform to all developers on the 
project).

features and plugins are from eclipse RCP SDK. Notice that you don't have 
to use this layout.
You could be more consistent and have:

workspace
 +-target_platform_project
    + RCP_SDK
       +- features
       +- plugins
       .....
    +- deltapack
    +- sources
        +-
    ....

> I don't understand what does the baseLocation property mean in that
> case?

It represents directory containing prebuilt features and plug-ins against 
which the product is compiled and assembled.
In the example above it would be path to: ${workspace}/target_platform_project 
since it contains features and plugins folders from eclipse RCP SDK that 
we compile against.

> it is currently pointing to the eclipse sdk folder, and I am getting
> errors about missing dependencies (CDT).
> I tried to set the pluginPath variable to contain the directories
> containing my plugins in addition to all the target platform directories,
> but it doesn't seem to have an effect.
> a. Do I need to "install" all the dependencies in the eclipse platform
> installation? Can't I keep it in separate folders?

You're right. pluginPath should be enough. You have to set it up correctly.
For example, in our build file we use something like this to set pluginPath:

	<path id="target.platform.plugins">
		<fileset dir="${baseLocation}/slf4j">
				<include name="*.jar"/>
		</fileset>
		<fileset dir="${baseLocation}/spring-security/plugins">
				<include name="*.jar"/>
		</fileset>
		<fileset dir="${baseLocation}/spring/plugins">
				<include name="*.jar"/>
		</fileset>
                         <!-- ...... -->
		<fileset dir="${baseLocation}/openoffice">
				<include name="**/*.jar"/>
		</fileset>
                         <pathelement location="${baseLocation}/deltapack/eclipse"/>
            </path>

            <property name="pluginPath" refid="target.platform.plugins" 
description="A platform path-separator separated list of locations to find 
additional plug-ins and features." />

Also, we do not use feature based build since we're building a product so 
instead of importing 

           <import file="${eclipse.pdebuild.scripts}/build.xml" />

we import 

	<import file="${eclipse.pdebuild.scripts}/productBuild/productBuild.xml" />


You have to be careful with pluginPath and not forget something... I guess 
the easiest way would be to have an ant task that would import .target definition 
but unfortunately I think there is no such task.

> 2. Must I copy my plugins and features into the plugins and features
> directories in the build area, or can I use pluginPath to avoid that?
> I thought from Andrew's post
> http://aniefer.blogspot.com/2008/06/example-headless-build-for-rcp-product.html
> that pluginPath can eliminate that need.

You have to copy all your plugins and features that you intend to build. 
If you have prebuilt artifacts in your artifact repository (like nexus) or 
directory, you can add them to the pluginPath as above and it should work.

--
Ivica Loncar