Radek’s Tech Blog

Many times when working with Eclipse RCP I had to generate ad-hoc updatesites (usually containing some 3rd party plug-ins). What I usually did to achieve this (with Eclipse IDE):

• create new feature project
• add plug-ins to the feature
• create new updatesite project
• add the feature to the updatesite (pre-p2 style – site.xml)
• export newly created updatesite (letting Eclipse to deal with creating p2 meta data)

Since I needed to automate this process I started researching on p2 capabilities and found out that it can be done from command line using FeatureAndBundlesPublisher application. Sample command line invocation to do it:

%ECLIPSE_EXE% -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.publisher.FeaturesAndBundlesPublisher -metadataRepository file:/%P2_TARGET% -artifactRepository file:/%P2_TARGET% -source %P2_SRC% -compress -configs win32.win32.x86 -publishArtifacts

Where:

• ECLIPSE_EXE – points to Eclipse executable;
• P2_TARGET – path to an empty directory where p2 repository should be created;
• P2_SRC – path to the directory with /plugins subdirectory and plug-ins to be published (jar files) inside;
• -compress parameter is optional. It compresses artifacts.xml and content.xml to jar (zip) files.

Recently I’m getting a bit confused about p2. There is an update site created with PDE headless build. There are IUs generated for each plug-in/fragment/feature. Everything looks great so far.

Let’s assume: plug-in A and fragment B with a defined host plug-in A are sitting together on single update site. Plug-in A in reality cannot run without appropriate version of fragment B (e.g. situation similar to SWT).

My understanding of p2-power was that I wouldn’t need to create separate feature C aggregating A and B just to make fragment B be automatically installed when I request installation of plug-in A.

I spent some time on reviewing Eclipse Bugzilla and mailing lists. Interesting findings:

http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_p2_Meeting_2007#Fragments_optional_vs._requirement

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=256430

Any suggestions about handling such “required” fragment scenario without getting rid of autogenerated p2 repository and hand crafting p2 metadata?

It looks like Eclipse DemoCamp will come to Krakow sometime in June. The agenda is not available now, but I hope it will be interesting. There is a lot of exciting stuff coming with Eclipse 3.4 (I’m currently working with Eclipse 3.4 M7 platform and looking forward for final release that is coming in end of June).

Agenda, specific date and place should be announced here