Incremental Project Builders

Identifier: org.eclipse.core.resources.builders

Description: The workspace supports the notion of an incremental project builder (or "builder" for short").  The job of a builder is to process a set of resource changes (supplied as a resource delta).  For example, a Java builder would recompile changed Java files and produce new class files.

Builders are configured on a per-project basis and run automatically when resources within their project are changed.  As such, builders should be fast and scale with respect to the amount of change rather than the number of resources in the project.  This typically implies that builders are able to incrementally update their "built state".

The builders extension-point allows builder writers to register their builder implementation under a symbolic name that is then used from within the workspace to find and run builders. The symbolic name is the id of the builder extension.  When defining a builder extension, users are encouraged to include a human-readable value for the "name" attribute which indentifies their builder and potentially may be presented to users.

Configuration Markup:

   <!ELEMENT builder run?>
   <!ATTLIST builder
      hasNature    CDATA #IMPLIED
   >

   <!ELEMENT run parameter*>   <!ATTLIST run
      class          CDATA #REQUIRED
   >    <!ELEMENT parameter EMPTY>
   <!ATTLIST parameter
      name         CDATA #REQUIRED
      value        CDATA #REQUIRED
   > Examples:

Following is an example of a builder configuration:

   <extension id="coolbuilder" name="Cool Builder" point="org.eclipse.core.resources.builders">
      <builder hasNature="false">
         <run class="com.xyz.builders.Cool">
            <parameter name="optimize" value="true"/>
            <parameter name="comment" value="Produced by the Cool Builder"/>
         </run>
      </builder>
   </extension>

If this extension was defined in a plug-in with id "com.xyz.coolplugin", the fully qualified name of this builder would be "com.xyz.coolplugin.coolbuilder".

API Information: The value of the class attribute must represent a subclass of org.eclipse.core.resources.IncrementalProjectBuilder.

Supplied Implementation: The platform itself does not have any predefined builders. Particular product installs may include builders as required.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2000, 2002.  All Rights Reserved.