Just recently started using Eclipse and ran into an issue with exporting the plugin I'm working on. I tried to search but so far no luck - but if the answer is already here I'd be grateful if someone can point me to it.
I'm writing a n OSGi/Equinox plugin with Eclipse. The plugin is for a 3rd party system, which allows extensions: basically all jars placed in the application's plugin folder are automatically loaded into the application at startup. I have managed to put together my plugin, it's loading fine and it works.
The issue is that I rely on another plugin which is placed beside mine in the plugins folder. For obvious reasons I do not want to package that plugin into my plugin jar file. I have tried to add the dependency as an external archive, but this breaks the export: when I try to export my plugin project ant complains about missing dependencies and types. (If I actually include the other jar file in my plugin everything works, but obviously this is less then ideal.)
So: how do I set up my plugin project dependency, that it's a) an external dependency and b) doesn't need to be specified with a path or a variable - i.e. how do I tell my exporter to "don't worry, it will be there right beside you"?
Edit: Apparently there's an important detail I didn't mention. The external jar file I depend on is not an OSGi plugin, just a regular jar file with some classes in it. To the 3rd party system it seems all the same (all are under the plugins folder, all are loaded into the application), but for Eclipse the distinction seems important.
If you reference the other plug-in as a dependency in your plug-in's MANIFEST.MF the export should work without errors. The plug-in should be listed in the Require-Bundle list in the MANIFEST.MF.
You can do this in the MANIFEST.MF editor by adding to the 'Required Plug-ins' list on the 'Dependencies' tab of the editor.
Note: When referencing other plug-ins you must always use this method. Do not try adding the plug-in jar to the Java build path or anything like that.
If the jar you want to use is not an Eclipse plug-in you must should include it as part of the plug-in and list the jar in the Bundle-Classpath in the MANIFEST.MF. If you cannot do this you can reference an external jar in the Bundle-Classpath using something like:
Bundle-Classpath: .,external:$LIB_LOCATION$/lib.jar
. is the normal entry in for the plug-in code. external:$LIB_LOCATION$/lib.jar looks for lib.jar in a location defined by the environment variable LIB_LOCATION. This method can be difficult to get right.
In the end the solution to my specific problem was to add the external jar file as an Extra Classpath Entry on the build properties tab (this translated to a "jars.extra.classpath = .jar" entry in the build.properties file). I have also added the jar file to the project itself - after adding the extra class path entry that got changed into an external dependency automatically.
With these two changes I was able to successfully export my plugin, which didn't contain the external jar file, but was able to reference it when loaded into the 3rd party system.
Related
I have an eclipse plug-in working fine within eclipse environment.
I wanted to export it into a jar file, so I chose Export > Deployable plug-ins and fragments.
I could get a jar file, but an error was reported.
Opening the log file, it reports that I have 1242 problems (191 errors, 1051 warnings). This is some copy from the error log.
2. ERROR in /Users/LSclipse/src/lsclipse/LSDiffRunner.java (at line 61)
import edu.washington.cs.induction.OnePipeLineScript;
^^^
The import edu cannot be resolved
----------
3. ERROR in /Users/LSclipse/src/lsclipse/LSDiffRunner.java (at line 261)
OnePipeLineScript.getMatchingForRefFinder(projName, proj1, proj1Loc
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OnePipeLineScript cannot be resolved
Why I got errors? I had 2049 warnings, but no error when I compile the plugin in eclipse IDE.
ADDED
The main project references two other projects, and references many external libraries. I attach the package view and Java build path.
There were multiple issues involved for this problem. However, the core issue was that the project apimatching and originanalysis were not eclipse plugins but just java projects. As a result, those two projects were not included in the final jar file to break the build.
Symbolic linking the two projects into the main project
I solved this issue by symbolic link the src directory into the main eclipse plugin project.
ln -s /workspace/seal/edu.ucsc.originanalysis/src /LSclipse/originanalysis
ln -s /workspace/seal/edu.ucsc.apimatching/src /LSclipse/apimatching
From the Java Build Path/Source tab, I added those two included projects as source. Eclipse Java Missing required source folder: 'src'
Now I have eclipse plugin jar file without error.
Then click F-5 to refresh the project explorer and check they are java src directory.
Select the included projects in Build tab.
Updating bin.include and source.. in build.properties tab is important. One should understand that in bin.include the ordering is also critical. lib/cdtparser.jar and lib/cdtcore.jar should be placed prior to the user of them - origin analysis/.
Copying jar files for included project into main project
I also had to copy some jar files in those projects file into the main project, and select them in Binary Build tab.
And add tim in Runtime/Classpath tab.
Select the JavaSE-1.6 in Execution Environments.
I have lots of "Must Override a Superclass Method" errors. With the hint from this post - 'Must Override a Superclass Method' Errors after importing a project into Eclipse , I removed the J2SE-1.5 to resolve this issue.
You can not add third party libraries into class path of Java when developing a plug-in. It is the way to build standard Java application, but plug-in is a kind of OSGi bundle that has itself rule for class loading.
The correct way is adding third party libraries into the class path of your plug-in.
Add below declaration into MANIFEST.MF of your plug-in,
Bundle-ClassPath: lib/log4j-1.2.7.jar,
xml-apis.jar,
...
Check those links [1], [2] for understanding it.
This is what have a question on and see as potential solutions to potential problems.
Is this class comfing from a referenced jar or is it in the actual plugin edu.washington.cs.induction.OnePipeLineScript;
You seem to have a lot of soure folders and wondering if your build.properties file is showing any warnings and that you also have this defined for each of the source folders in your build.properties source.. = src/
Your external jar libraries appear to be in a folder that is of type source which is not correct. It should be a non-source folder (which you can tell a source folder by the package icon decorator) and you should make sure in your manifest editor that for runtime you have the lib checked so that it includes the jars in the build. To unmark it as a source folder select the drop down menu in your navigator view go to filters and uncheck .resources which will then show the .classpath file in that file you will see the folder to be kind="src" (i believe) remove that.
Somehow it also looks like you have linked source folders which is a practice I would not suggest and am not sure if that will cause problems when exporting the plugin. If you can avoid linked source folders that would be better.
Also it seems like you are confusing java build path configuration for plain java applications with plugins running in OSGI which is not configured through java build path but your manifest.editor So as a rule of thumb if its a plugin don't even bother trying to configure the java build path because OSGI is different, that could be causing issues as well
Select "Use class files complied in the workspace" in Options works for me.
We have an application developed in NetBeans, based on the NetBeans platform. There's a 3'rd party program that we have a runtime dependency on, more specifically a jar in the other progams lib folder.
How should we include the other progam's jar in our classpath?
The recommendation from the other progam's manufacturer is to set environment variable CLASSPATH to include
C:\Progam Files\Other Program\lib\theJAR.jar
And if that's not possible, we should copy theJAR.jar to JRE-HOME\lib\ext
We must not copy theJAR.jar anywhere else, that might cause it to stop working...
Now NetBeans takes no notice of what's on environment variable CLASSPATH. Their recommended way seems to be to make a wrapper, but that would lead to copying the jar, unless there's some way to make a wrapper module that points to CLASSPATH?
At the moment we are copying the jar into JRE-HOME\lib\ext. But then there's unnecessary hassle when we install some java update.
Do you have any solution to this problem? It seems like something that might be simple, but I haven't found the right place to look yet...
Edit: The application is ant-based.
From the documentation for the Module System API's overview of the runtime infrastructure (bottom of the page under the section "Common Problems and Solutions"):
Q: Can my module add a library JAR to the classpath from outside the
IDE [read: platform] installation?...
A: Not easily. You have a few options:
Add an entry to ide.cfg [your app's .config file]. For example:
-cp:a c:\eak\lib\eak.jar This startup file provides the ability to add classpath entries to the IDE's Java invocation.
...
It goes on to list two more options. The second option is the same solution you've come up with. The third is to "partition your module and use a new classloader" which I can't recommend either way since I have no experience doing this (but it's worth a read).
Assuming that this first option is what you are looking for, you will need to add a custom .conf file to your project and point to it in your project.properties file, like so: app.conf=nbproject/my.conf. This will add your custom .conf file to your app's install directory instead of the default config file that is normally added. Of course, you'll need to add the -cp:a c:\eak\lib\eak.jar entry to this custom config file in order to load the .jar.
During development you'll need to add the following entry to the project.properties file: run.args.extra=-cp:a c:\eak\lib\eak.jar. This will pass the command line option to your debug instance.
You can add that .jar file by following the steps below:
In the left side panel named "Projects" open your project and right click on the "Libraries", then select "Add JAR/Folder...".
Then select your .jar file from the location where you have stored it in the next dialog box that opens and then press "Open".
Vola Finished!!! (with the same process you can add other libraries also like JavaCV, JMF,etc)
And Now You Can Use That .Jar File From Your Project Library.
Hope It Helps.
I need to run an Eclipse (Indigo version) plugin, but from the error log I find out that I am missing 2 jars.
How can I add the missing jar to Eclipse so that I can run the plugin?
Is there a way to add the jar to the existing plugin?
If this is of any help, I try to run Hadoop Map/Reduce perspective and I found out that I should add commons-configuration and commons-lang.
The simplest way is to just copy the Jar file(s) into your plugin project, and then go to the plugin manifest (open the MANIFEST.MF file) and add them to the classpath on the Runtime Tab. Also on the Build tab, make sure they are checked so that they are included in the output of the plugin.
There are other ways, like making a special plugin to house only the required Jar files, or get the bundle (plugin) that might already contain that Jar file from someplace like Orbit.
What is the right way to include an additional JAR file in an Eclipse plugin? My own plugin requires apache-commons-io. I copied the JAR into my plugins directory and added it via the "Dependencies" tab of the plugin manifest. This works for me, but other users of my plugins will have to download Commons-IO manually.
What is the correct way to package Commons-IO in my plugin?
I usually use the following strategy:
If I can find the JAR in question packaged as a bundle - i.e. the MANIFEST.MF contains the correct entries - then I use this. Have a look at the Orbit project for a set of pre-packaged bundles of all sorts. org.apache.commons.io is already here...
If that is not possible, then I just include the JAR in my bundle, and updates MANIFEST.MF - e.g. Bundle-ClassPath: library.jar,.
Sometimes it is cleaner to create a unique plugin for libraries.
(So you can use it from several plugins, License topics, Size of your Plug-In, different version, ...)
Do so by "New ..."
Category: "Plug-In Development"
then "Plug-In from existing jar archieve"
Select your jars and there you go.
I try to build a Eclipse plugin that has to use a self written jar which is dependent on other jars, but I don't get the point where to start with handling jars as seperate PlugIns. Anywhere I have to use just the .jar files or am I wrong?
I think I found a proper solution; the trick is that you have to implement all the files via Eclipse. I just copy here the solution which was posted to news.eclipse.platform:
Include the jars in a plugin:
Use Import > File System to import the jar files into your plugin project, say in the <project>/lib directory.
Use Add... button to add the jars to the classpath section of the plugin.xml > Runtime tab.
Use New... button to add "." library back (with no quotes, of course).
Make sure your binary build exports the new jar files on the plugin.xml > Build tab.
Save
On the project, use context menu > PDE Tools > Update Classpath to correctly add the jars to the eclipse project classpath.
What is a self-written jar?
Normally you turn 3rd party jars into bundles using an OSGi MANIFEST.MF (See New>Plug-in Development>Plug-in from Existing JAR archive) or you include them in your plugin.jar and add extra Bundle-ClassPath entries as mentioned by TomaC.
If you mean at runtime your plugin will create a new jar and needs to load it, that's different, though.
Project Properties -> Java Build Path -> Add External jars. Is this what you are looking for?