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Eclipse PDE Build - Tutorial

Lars Vogel and Dominik Zapf

Version 1.3

22.10.2009

Revision History
Revision 0.115.09.2008Lars Vogel
First draft of article
Revision 0.220.11.2008Dominik Zapf
Added ant description
Revision 0.330.11.2008Lars Vogel
Corrections
Revision 0.410.12.2008Dominik Zapf
Corrections
Revision 0.527.12.2008Lars Vogel
Created separate article for PDE build, fixed description
Revision 0.630.12.2008Lars Vogel
Feature build now works
Revision 0.711.01.2009Lars Vogel
Simplified the build example
Revision 0.812.01.2009Lars Vogel
Minor adjustments
Revision 0.927.07.2009Lars Vogel
Started update to Eclipse 3.5
Revision 1.028.07.2009Lars Vogel
Update to Eclipse 3.5
Revision 1.105.09.2009Lars Vogel
Fixed error with location of build.mxl
Revision 1.210.09.2009Lars Vogel
reworked article
Revision 1.322.10.2009Lars Vogel
Removed hard-coded I.TestBuild from build.xml

Eclipse PDE build

This article describes how to use Eclipse PDE Build to create automatically a running application from source code.

This article uses Eclipse 3.5 and Java 1.6.


Table of Contents

1. Eclipse PDE/Build
2. Eclipse Deltapack
2.1. Download
2.2. Target Platform
3. Create your application
3.1. Pre-requirements
3.2. Create plugin and feature
4. Building
4.1. Create project
4.2. Configuration file
4.3. Run the build
4.4. Test your build result
5. Thank you
6. Questions and Discussion
7. Links and Literature
7.1. Source Code
7.2. PDE/Build links

1. Eclipse PDE/Build

PDE/Build is a Apache Ant based build system for Eclipse RCP application and Eclipse plugins. This build system is also called "headless" build because it does not require a running Eclipse UI to create your product.

The PDE build system is part of the Eclipse plugin org.eclipse.pde.build.

Tip

This tutorial will use the Ant functionality inside Eclipse and does not require a separate Ant installation. To run PDE/Build outside Eclipse you need to have Ant separately installed (see Apache Ant for details.

This tutorial uses PDE build to create a executable application for an Eclipse RCP project.

Tip

Check also the PDE build help in the Eclipse help under Help -> Help Contents -> Plug-in Development Environment Guide -> Tasks