PTP/designs/remote/cdt

Evaluation of CDT for EFS support, esp. remote file system

The Current Status

CDT has no support for EFS at all. Even its support for locally linked resources are quite limited. For example, the following bugs are already identified:

• 136136 Build directory should not be restricted to workspace
• 70491 Invalid Include Path when "Link to Folder in the Filesystem"

And, also reference http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/cdt-dev/msg03059.html for the discussion of linked resources.

What is Needed?

With EFS, projects or its component directories and files can be linked to different file systems, which can be local, remote, or virtual. The files and directories can be physically located at completely diverse places. To support EFS while keeping the standard make builder, the CDT build has to be modified in the way that the files in the project can, when appropriate, be replicated in a build directory (optionally on a remote build server) before the build command is invoked. The existing build directory of the C/C++ Build property can be exteded for this purpose and an additional property of build server can be added (see pic). The above process abstracts and covers all possible cases. For example, in a common deployment scenario of remote build, the whole project is located on the build machine, and thus the replication is not necessary. Another example is a project with directories and files linked to local file system, in which case the files need to be replicated to a local build directory before invoking the build command. This will affect several other aspects of CDT, which possibly has to be modified as well. Such components include the Indexer, Managed Make etc.

Roadmap to EFS Enablement for CDT

1. CDT Project Creation/Conversion Wizard does not support EFS
2. Modify the code to allow build directory outside of workspace (fix to bug 136136)
3. Add build server property to the build property tab
4. Modify the code to launch build command on build server
5. Investigate the affected components like Indexer and ManagedMake and fix those components.