Version Compare Tool
The version compare tool is developed to verify Eclipse feature versions and plug-in versions. The full name of this plug-in tool is “org.eclipse.pde.tools.versioning”.
Feature Version, Plug-in Version, and Java Class
Figure 1 shows the hierarchy of feature, plug-in and Java Class. From the hierarchy, it is easy to understand that updates on Java classes will cause plug-in update; plug-in, feature updates will cause feature updates. Therefore, if we want to verify if a feature is correct, we need to verify versions of its included features and plug-ins; to verify the version of a plug-in, we need to check updates on the Java classes it contains.
Anyone, who has some experience on Eclipse, must knows there are a bunch of features and plug-ins under an Eclipse installation. Thus, it is difficult to manually check whether the new versions of features and plug-ins have been updated correctly. This tool will help people to verify the new feature versions and plug-in versions.
How to use this tool?
We provide two approaches to use this tool.
In the “Feature Select Option” area, you need to select if the features you are going to compare are under the “/features” directory under an Eclipse installation directory, or included in the Eclipse configuration file ( usually it is the “\configuration\org.eclipse.updateplatform.xml” file under an Eclipse installation directory)
In the “Plugin Compare Option” area, you can choose if you want to compare plug-ins as objects. If you choose this option, all classes denoted by “Bundle-ClassPath” in a plug-in manifest file will be compared.
In the “Information Option” area, you can choose what kinds of messages you want to see in the compare result.
In the file selection area, you can choose:
“New”, directory or configuration file which includes new version of features;
“Old”, directory or configuration file which includes old version of features;
“Option File”, a property file which contains inclusion and exclusion information;
“Output File”, a XML file to which the compare messages will be written;
In the button bar,
Button “Verify” is pressed to do compare;
Button “Filter Result” is pressed to show interested messages; this function is combined with the selections in “Information Option” area;
Button “Close” is pressed to terminate the application;
The usage is:
java -cp startup.jar org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main -application org.eclipse.pde.tools.versioning.VersionVerifier -new [path] -old [path] -option [path] -output [path] [-pluginCompare] [-consoleOutput]
-new: path of new configuration file or features directory
-old: path of old configuration file or features directory
-option: path of compare option file (optional)
-output: path of result XML file
-pluginCompare: if need to compare plugins as objects (optional)
-consoleOutput: print results to the system console (optional)