Eclipse Liberty Project Helper — elph

A tool to help set up an eclipse workspace for working on Open-Liberty.

Post any questions to #was-elph on slack

Prerequisites

• Build Open Liberty locally
• Java 17 or above
• SDKMAN (optional, but recommended for managing Java SDKs)

  • Search for the lastest Java versions to install

      sdk list java
    

  • Install the latest Semeru version of Java 17 e.g. 17.0.8-sem:

     sdk install java 17.x.x-sem
    

  • Use the Java 17 version you have just installed

      sdk use java 17.x.x-sem
    

Installing ELPH

• Clone the repo locally

    git clone git@github.com:joe-chacko/elph.git
  

• Add the path to your cloned repo of ELPH to your PATH environment variable so that your command line knows where to find the executable.

  • In an editor of your choice add the following line to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc depending on if you are using bash or z shell:

        export PATH=<path-to-elph-dir>:$PATH
    

  • Run the following command to immediately apply the changes to your PATH environment variable:

    • Bash Shell

        source ~/.bashrc
      

    • Z Shell

        source ~/.zshrc
      

• Try running elph to see if it builds properly

    elph help
  

Running ELPH

• Invoke elph help — this will build the tool and give a description of each of ELPH's commands.
• Invoke elph setup -i — this will configure it interactively. Run it again without the -i to display (and validate) the config.
• Invoke elph analyze — this will take a little while (under 1 minute) to query bnd about your workspace.
• Invoke elph list '*yoko*' — this will list all the known projects that contain 'yoko' in the title.
• Invoke elph eclipse — this will start Eclipse with the configured workspace.

Setting up Eclipse

Turn on build automatically

• Click the Project tab at the top and ensure Build Automatically is checked

Install bnd tools

• Install bnd tools by going to the tab at the top of Eclipse and selecting Help > Eclipse Marketplace > BndTools > Install > Confirm

Filter errors

It will help when debugging Eclipse errors is to filter what you can see in the Markers view pane.

• Click on the filter (a funnel icon) near the bottom of the page
  1. Create a new filter called All Errors with Scope No filter, show all elements and Show severities where severity is Error
  2. Create a new filter called Errors on Project with Scope On elements in selected projects and Show severities where severity is Error

Use All Errors when importing projects and just Errors on Project when fixing individual problems.

Import some projects

• Run elph import cnf to import the vital first project that bndtools needs!
  • Uncheck all checkboxes in the Import dialog
  • Check the "Hide already open projects" checkbox
• Run elph import build.image build.sharedResources to import the next two initial projects.
• Other projects to try importing early on:
  • com.ibm.ws.ras.instrument
  • fattest.simplicity