[news.eclipse.technology.kepler] Re: Kepler build management

[Thomas Hallgren <thomas@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Scott,
Scott Lewis wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> Question:  Does Buckminster currently use the Package Admin service 
> (aka org.osgi.service.packageadmin.PackageAdmin), to get at bundle 
> dependency information?

First, dependencies in general:
Normally we use the org.eclipse.pde.core.plugin.IPluginBase interface 
when we resolve dependencies. Buckminster must discover meta-data in 
artifacts found in remote repositories. Not just dependency information 
but also data pertaining to how artifacts are built. To cover the PDE 
model we also need to cater for features (not covered by OSGi). For that 
we obtain org.eclipse.pde.internal.core.ifeature.IFeature interface.

Second, exported/imported packages:
The package admin service also deals with how packages are 
imported/exported (irrespective of bundles) in the OSGi framework. Since 
such dependencies are described in terms of packages, the information 
cannot be used when we discover bundle dependencies unless we have some 
kind of closure that defines the set of bundles that are available. We 
require that a top level feature or plugin defines that set (directly or 
indirectly through other features/bundles) or that unresolved packages 
can be found in the target platform.

Kind Regards,
Thomas Hallgren