How to run eclipse in clean mode? what happens if we do so?

Question

What it does:

if set to "true", any cached data used by the OSGi framework and eclipse runtime will be wiped clean. This will clean the caches used to store bundle dependency resolution and eclipse extension registry data. Using this option will force eclipse to reinitialize these caches.

How to use it:

• Edit the eclipse.ini file located in your Eclipse install directory and insert -clean as the first line.
• Or edit the shortcut you use to start Eclipse and add -clean as the first argument.
• Or create a batch or shell script that calls the Eclipse executable with the -clean argument. The advantage to this step is you can keep the script around and use it each time you want to clean out the workspace. You can name it something like eclipse-clean.bat (or eclipse-clean.sh).

(From: http://www.eclipsezone.com/eclipse/forums/t61566.html)

Other eclipse command line options: http://help.eclipse.org/indigo/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.isv%2Freference%2Fmisc%2Fruntime-options.html

For clean mode: start the platform like

eclipse -clean

That's all. The platform will clear some cached OSGi bundle information, it helps or is recommended if you install new plugins manually or remove unused plugins.

It will not affect any workspace related data.

You can start Eclipse in clean mode from the command line:

eclipse -clean

Using the -clean option is the way to go, as mentioned by the other answers.

Make sure that you remove it from your .ini or shortcut after you've fixed the problem. It causes Eclipse to reevaluate all of the plugins everytime it starts and can dramatically increase startup time, depending on how many Eclipse plugins you have installed.

• click on short cut
• right click -> properties
• add -clean in target clause and then start.

it will take much time then normal start and it will fresh up all resources.