[news.eclipse.tools] Re: Class not found even though jar file is in clas

[Jed Anderson <jed_anderson@xxxxxxx>]

> I would say what the "classpath" is for a java application, that is the
> "plugin.xml" for eclipse plugins (diss me if not so :-).

(not a diss, just clarification) :)

The classpath is the Java tooling's _compile_time_ idea of a classpath. 
 It is analogous to specifying the -classpath flag when running javac, 
with some tweaks to make it more user friendly, i.e. being able to 
specify other projects, or the classpath variable support.

The Java runtime classpath can be entirely different from the compile 
time classpath.  This is analogous to running "java -classpath". 
Currently, Eclipse does not have highly configurable support for 
modifying your runtime classpath.  There is an open PR for this.

The plugin.xml's <requires> clause allows plugin developers to specify a 
classpath for their plugin (not the entire Java runtime).  Each <import> 
statement is added to the plugin classloader's search path (remember 
each plugin gets it's own classloader).

jkca