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| <p class="style1">Launchers</p> |
| <p>Testing an Eclipse plug-in is very easy. Just save your file and launch a second instance of Eclipse. No packaging or deployment steps are necessary. </p> |
| <p>PDE makes it all possible by extending the "Debug" framework and providing three different launch configuration types that cover different testing domains: </p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="eclipse_application_launcher.htm">Eclipse Application</a></li> |
| <li><a href="equinox_launcher.htm">OSGi Framework</a></li> |
| <li><a href="junit_launcher.htm">JUnit Plug-in Test</a></li> |
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| <p> </p> |
| <p>PDE launch configurations are centrally managed within the <strong>Launch Configuration Dialog</strong> along with other launch configurations in the SDK. PDE launch configurations can be invoked via <strong>Run > Run...</strong> or <strong>Debug > Debug...</strong> from the top level menu. </p> |
| <p><img src="../../images/launchers/launcher_outline.png" alt="launchers outline" hspace="30"></p> |
| <p> </p> |
| <p class="style3">Save and Launch </p> |
| <p>As you develop your plug-in in the workspace, the Java source code gets incrementally compiled and the generated class files are placed in output folders. When you launch a runtime Eclipse application, PDE launches the application in <strong><em>dev</em></strong> mode and customizes the runtime classpath. PDE customizes the runtime classpath by putting the freshly generated class files on your plug-in classpath; thus, making them readily available to get picked up by the runtime classloader. This mechanism allows you to test your code without the need to package it in a JAR first.</p> |
| <p>PDE gives you even more control over the runtime classpath of your plug-in by providing a <strong>Runtime Classpath</strong> property page for each plug-in project. Within this property page, you can specify which classes to exclude or include at the output folder level when testing. The <strong>Runtime Classpath</strong> property page can be invoked via <strong>Properties > Plug-in Development > Runtime Classpath</strong> from the context menu of plug-in projects. </p> |
| <p> </p> |
| <p><img src="../../images/launchers/runtime_classpath.PNG" alt="Runtime Classpath" hspace="30"> </p> |
| <p>A specific example of when you might want to exclude output folders from a launch is when you are testing Ant tasks. The reason for this is that Ant expects your code to be in a JAR according to the Ant contract. Therefore, it is recommended to package Ant code in a JAR within your plug-in project and exclude the output folder containing the compiled Ant task source from the launch. </p> |
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