Can somebody explain the eclipse.p2.profile

Question

I'm organizing a build of an Eclipse RCP.

Using the p2-director, one property is the profile. The Eclipse documentation only states the below explanation, which isn't that clear in my view.

-profile: the profile id containing the description of the targeted product. This ID is is defined by the eclipse.p2.profile property contained in the config.ini of the targeted product. For the Eclipse SDK the ID is "SDKProfile"

So my question is this:

What is the profile used for, what does it describes and how can I ensure I use it properly?

Does anybody have a better explanation or a link to a proper documentation?

Answer 1

Since P2 installs things, it has to have a database of the installation state. P2 can maintain multiple installation states. Each database P2 has to maintain is called a profile. A profile is accessed using an identifier. When running, P2 has a registry of these databases.

There are two properties that P2 receives from the config.ini when it starts up as part of an Eclipse RCP: eclipse.p2.data.area - Where to physically store its data - and eclipse.p2.profile - What key to use for the installation state of the installation you are running in.

Answer 2

I'm not an expert, but I will try. It basically contains all of the p2 stuff required to make the software update mechanism work for your application. You will need this with an RCP application. It contains (among other things) the list of artifacts that are currently installed. It allows you to revert to a former installation state.

You can find the examples of this in any Eclipse installation in p2//org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine/profileRegistry