Difference between 32 and 64 bit Eclipse

Question

I have a quick question about the difference between the 32 and 64 bit version of Eclipse. I need to know what the difference is between the actual downloads, not the differences in performance or anything like that.

My situation is this: I have set up a development environment for an Eclipse project (Java) using 64-bit Eclipse, versioned the files in Subversion, and found out after the fact that we MUST develop on a 32-bit OS because of constraints for other parts of this project. Rather than have to download and set up a whole different instance of Eclipse, is it as simple as replacing the EXEs that launch Eclipse with 32-bit versions? Or are there other files that would have to be replaced?

Answer 1

Leave Eclipse running in a 64 bit JVM. Install a 32 bit JVM and configure the project to use that 32 bit JVM.

When developing a program in Eclipse, remember that there's the IDE and then there's the program being written. Eclipse has no requirements to launch the program being written in the same JVM as the IDE.

Unless you are actually developing an Eclipse-plugin, you will never know the difference. If you are developing an Eclipse-plugin, you should install a 32 bit version of Eclipse to use as your reference platform, and still develop the program using a different copy of Eclipse. Otherwise, you will run the risk of introducing dependencies based on the development environment (which might not be there in someone else's vanilla runtime).