Getting started with CDT development

Getting started with CDT development for the latest CVS head

Preparing workspace

First you need to get the correct eclipse version, the latest CVS head of CDT works with eclipse 3.5 (Galileo), so browse downloads page and grab this version. It should contain both the JDT and PDE plugins that would allow you to develop plugins for eclipse.

Now let's download the CDT source code.

• Go to the CVS view in eclipse (Window->Open Perspective->Other->CVS Repository exploring).
• Right click on the right panel of "CVS Repositories", select new->Repository Location.
• Then write dev.eclipse.org in the Host field.
• Write /cvsroot/tools in the Repository path field.
• Write anonymous in the User field.
• Select "pserver" in the Connection type field.
• Click Finish and you should be able to browse the CVS.
• In the CVS tree, expand ``HEAD->org.eclipse.cdt->all.
• To get the source code, right-click on each of the following folders and select "Checkout".
  • org.eclipse.cdt.core
  • org.eclipse.cdt.core.win32 (or your environment),
  • org.eclipse.cdt.debug.core
  • org.eclipse.cdt.debug.mi.core
  • org.eclipse.cdt.debug.mi.ui
  • org.eclipse.cdt.debug.ui
  • org.eclipse.cdt.launch
  • org.eclipse.cdt.make.core
  • org.eclipse.cdt.make.ui
  • org.eclipse.cdt.managebuilder.core
  • org.eclipse.cdt.managebuilder.ui
  • org.eclipse.cdt.managebuilder.gnu.ui
  • org.eclipse.cdt.refactoring
  • org.eclipse.cdt.sdk
  • org.eclipse.cdt.ui

After you checkout, JDT will build all the projects for you. If you have any error markers, you might be missing some plugins.

Launching

Now, move back to the PDE (Plug-in Development Environment) perspective. Window->Perspective->Other->"Plug in Development". There, you'll see a project with the name org.eclipse.cdt.ui, right click the org.eclipse.cdt.ui project, select "Run As"->"eclipse application". You should see a new instance of eclipse - with the latest version of eclipse CDT plugins.

Submitting and Applying Patches

If you wish to contribute your changes to CDT see these instructions.

In order to apply a patch, right click the relevant project, and select "Team->Apply Patch...

In case you've applied a patch, and you wish to revert back to the latest HEAD branch - right click the project, then "Replace With->Latest From HEAD", answer Yes to the warning message, and the patch is gone.

Creating a runtime patch

Building a working cdt distribution is very difficult, but if you want just patch up your local installation you can export plugin(s) to which source patch is applied using Export->Plugins, export as archive and use your eclipse installation as destination. Make sure after this you have 2 version of the same plugin (one from installation and one new) in the plugins directory and version qualifier of your new plugin is higher.