Programmatically configure Eclipse Installed JREs

Question

I want to configure my Eclipse environment to use the JDK instead of the standard JRE. I'm doing this because I use m2eclipse, which requires tools.jar from the JDK to run.

I'm running Eclipse 3.5.1 on Windows 7 32-bit with JDK 1.6.0_16.

On my system, I have the JDK installed to "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk" (symlink to the latest install).

I add the -vm option to eclipse.ini to point to the JDK

-vm
C:/Program Files/Java/jdk/bin

I've confirmed that eclipse is in fact starting with the desired JVM. In the configuration details

eclipse.vm=c:/Program Files/Java/jdk/bin\..\jre\bin\client\jvm.dll

Additionally, in my environment,

JAVA_HOME=c:\Program Files\Java\jdk

However, in Window | Preferences | Java | Installed JREs, the only JRE listed is the one in "C:\Program Files\Java\jre6". This JRE ends up being the one under which Maven is run, and so my maven builds fail.

I know I can manually change the Installed JRE to point to the JDK, and this is what I've done in the past. However, I'd like to find a way to script this change so that I can automate the installation of a dev environment.

Where is this setting stored? What is the best way to automatically configure Eclipse to use the JDK as the only Installed JRE?

Answer 1

The setting is stored in

<workspace>\.metadata\.plugins\org.eclipse.core.runtime\.settings\org.eclipse.jdt.launching.prefs

I would recommend setting your JDK manually in Preferences / Java / Installed JRE, as well as Preferences / Java / Installed JRE / Execution Environment.

Then, whenever you need an eclipse with that exact configuration, just copy over this file with your preset config file, and launch that eclipse.

Extract from that config file:

org.eclipse.jdt.launching.PREF_DEFAULT_ENVIRONMENTS_XML=
  <?xml version\="1.0" encoding\="UTF-8" standalone\="no"?>
  <defaultEnvironments>
      <defaultEnvironment environmentId\="JavaSE-1.6" 
                          vmId\="57,org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType13,1255369536255"/>
  </defaultEnvironments>


 eclipse.preferences.version=1
 org.eclipse.jdt.launching.PREF_VM_XML=
   <?xml version\="1.0" encoding\="UTF-8" standalone\="no"?>
       <vmSettings defaultVM\="57,org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType13,1255369536255">
            <vmType id\="org.eclipse.jdt.internal.debug.ui.launcher.StandardVMType">
                <vm id\="1255369536255" 
                    javadocURL\="http\://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/"
                    name\="jdk1.6.0_16" path\="C\:\\Prog\\Java\\jdk1.6.0_16">
                <libraryLocations>
                    <libraryLocation jreJar\="C\:/Prog/Java/jdk1.6.0_16/jre/lib/resources.jar" 
                                     jreJavadoc\="http\://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/" 
                                     jreSrc\="C\:/Prog/Java/jdk1.6.0_16/src.zip"
                                     pkgRoot\=""/>