How to run Eclipse launch configurations programmatically?

Question

I'm finding it difficult to phrase this question well, as there are quite a few generic terms (run, configuration, launch, etc.). Here goes:

You can save run configurations in a .launch file. (in the Run Configuration Dialog, under the Common tab, Save as a shared file.

We check these in to SVN. The developers can pass them around, and it helps getting new devs running a working application quicker.

I'd like to check these out as part of our build and use them to programatically run the application, the tests, etc, without spinning up the whole IDE.

What would be the best way to run a .launch file outside of the UI?

Edit: I am trying to unify the tests run on the build server and the IDE. I do not particularly want to give up integrated debugging, which would be the case with an ant script to run the tests .

This is probably more a problem for integration testing with multiple bundles, or unit testing a whole bundle, where you'd like to mock up extensions.

Answer 1

there is an eclipse plugin built over JUnit, called TPTP. It provides an automation client which can be used to launch the test from eclipse with no gui. maybe it helps

Answer 2

Ant4Eclipse may provide a good starting point on how to do this.

Unfortunately, this is limited to Java Applications and JUnit configurations; I am more interested in PDE applications and Plugin JUnit tests.