Eclipse File Service APIs Compared

This page compares features and use cases for remote file access APIs that are currently found in Eclipse.

This document is under construction, not finished yet.

RSE Files API

viewcvs: IFileService.java
viewcvs: IHostFile.java
Supports remote move, remote copy operations
Categorization of remote files, including support for symbolic links (derived classes of IHostFile)
Use Strings as canonical pathes (with '/' file separator)
Very lightweight and simple to implement since only Strings and two interfaces
Synchronous operations for upload, download (with IProgressMonitor, suitable for jobs)
No callbacks or other "watch" facilities
Supports remote file encodings different from local
RSE implementation does persistent caching of remote files

viewcvs: IFileStore.java
Overview on bug 106176 plan: provide more flexible workspaces
Existing sample implementations for ZIP and FTP file systems
Fully integrated with Platform Resources, allows transparent access to remote files
Fully abstract notion of remote pathes through URI for the root, plus parent/child relationships for the siblings
Supports remote move, remote copy operations
Synchronous operations for upload, download (with IProgressMonitor, suitable for jobs)
Originally written for performance optimizations on the local file system (through native calls), plus fully abstract access to remote file stores like databases
No notion of symbolic links or other advanced attributes
No callbacks or other "watch" facilities
URI has been criticized to be heavy-weight (but is only needed to specify the filesystem root, not necessarily the siblings)
Registered via extension point - problematic if multiple different implementations for the same access scheme exist, e.g. two implementations for "ftp:" access scheme in URI
API for file caching during the current Eclipse session