Adaptor Hooks

Overview

Since Eclipse 3.0 the Framework Adaptor API has been available in the Equinox OSGi Framework. A framework adaptor implementation is called upon by the Equinox OSGi Framework to perform a number of tasks. A framework adaptor may be used to add functionality to the framework.

A single framework adaptor is specified when the framework is launched. By default in Eclipse 3.0 this is set to the EclipseAdaptor. In order to add new functionality in an adaptor in Eclipse 3.0 and 3.1 it is required that the adaptor implementation either re-implement the complete framework adaptor API or extend one of the existing framework adaptor implementations. This makes it impossible for two parties to add new functionality to the framework in separate adaptors at the same time because the Equinox OSGi Framework can only be configured to use one adaptor.

In Eclipse 3.2 a new hookable adaptor has been included that is used by default as the framework adaptor. The framework adaptor API has remained unchanged for the most part in Eclipse 3.2. What has changed is the actual implementation of the adaptor API. A new implementation of the adaptor API is now included which provides hooks that others can implement to provide functionality to the adaptor implementation.

Hookable Adaptor

The hookable adaptor is implemented in the package org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor. This adaptor implementation provides all of the default behavior required of a FrameworkAdaptor to provide an OSGi R4 compliant Framework. It also provides many hooks that allow others to insert additional functionality into the framework through what are called framework extension bundles. See the OSGi Core Specification chapter 3.15 "Extension Bundles" for more information.

Framework extension bundles are fragments of the system bundle (org.eclipse.osgi). As a fragment they can provide extra classes which the framework can use. A framework extension bundle can define a set of hook implementations that are configured with the hookable adaptor (using a hookconfigurators.properties file).

The Base Adaptor

The class org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.BaseAdaptor implements the interface org.eclipse.osgi.framework.adaptor.FrameworkAdaptor. This class is used by default as the adaptor of the framework. You should avoid extending this class, instead you should use hook implementations to add functionality to the BaseAdaptor.

In some cases it may be impossible to do what you want with the current set of adaptor hooks. In this case you may be forced to extend the BaseAdaptor class to provide your own adaptor implementation. If you find yourself in this situation then you should open a bug against Framework Equinox requesting a new hook method or interface.

Hook Configurators

Hook configurators implement the org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.HookConfigurator interface.

The Hook Registry

The class org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.HookRegistry class provides a registry for adding hook implementations.