How can I build an Eclipse plugin outside of Eclipse?

Question

I have a series of Eclipse projects containing a number of plugins and features that are checked into CVS. I now need to run an automated build of these plugins. Ideally I'd like to do it without having to hardcode large numbers of Eclipse library locations by hand, which has been the problem with the automatically generated Ant files that Eclipse provides. The build also needs to run headlessly.

Does anyone have experience of this sort of set-up with Eclipse, and recommendations for how to achieve it?

Answer 1

There are a few options for you to look at, depending on which build scripting language you're using:

• For Maven2, the way forward seems to be Spring Dynamic Modules. Other options are Pax Construct, m2eclipse, Maven BND
• For Ant/Gant, Eclipse PDE Build, Ant4Eclipse
• For command line or both the above, Buckminster.

At my current clients we use Buckminster, which wraps PDE-Build, and call it from Ant/CruiseControl. We've got code coming in from multiple repositories all being built into a single RCP product.

Also, these questions may be of help.