PDE: Product Start sometimes triggers unwanted manifest changes

[mikerumpf]

I encountered a weird effect: I have a bundle which uses spotbugs-annotations (or a similar optional dependency) via additional.bundles in the build.properties.

When I launch the eclipse product, in which the bundle is included, the manifest of the bundle is changed and the spotbugs dependency is added automatically as non-optional package import.

This behavior can only be stopped with an eclipse restart.

I have a suspicion that this is somehow related to some cleanup manifests actions I did previously.
(Tested with Eclipse 6/24)

[laeubi]

This is actually not unexpected/unwanted but exactly what additional.bundles does.

Even though many people miss use that feature, it is made and described in the help as a way to add arbitrary bundles to the class-path that then are automatically added to the manifest on run (either as require bundle or import package) once you use a class from them.

There are alternatives but it depends on the use-case and some are not functional anymore, I planned to work on them but haven't had time recently to finish the work.

[mikerumpf]

Hmm, if that was the expected behavior, this feature doesn't seem to work consistently... As I wrote: after a eclipse restart the additional bundles are not added automatically to the manifest....

My usecase are optional dependencies like spotbugs or test dependencies which I don't want to see in the final manifest. Is there a better way to accomplish this?

[mikerumpf]

Also I think it is really not okay, if a product launch has side effects to files I have under version control. If I wanted that I could directly add the dependencies to the manifest myself.

[laeubi]

There is a feature but is is currently broken:

• [target] Implicit Plugin Dependencies is broken #451

then there are some efforts here:

• Add support for specify test requirements of a bundle #914

build.properties also support jars.extra.classpath see here

as mentioned there is much room for improvements.

[mikerumpf]

Sorry, I have to ask again, but you stated the manifest being changed with the product start would be expected behaviour. Isn't this contradicting the manifest editor?

[laeubi]

You need to read further down ;-)

See also https://help.eclipse.org/latest/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.pde.doc.user%2Fguide%2Ftools%2Feditors%2Fmanifest_editor%2Feditor.htm

As you add them to the build.properties, you are not adding them to the MANIFEST.MF (this happens automatically), so the fist sentence is not really wrong.

[mikerumpf]

Ok, got it. Thank you for explaining. Manually clicking on "add dependency" seems fine. But still, I think it is pretty weird that a product launch occasionally will trigger this feature automatically.

[laeubi]

I have now created

• Support jars.extra.classpath in the Manifest editory to avoid confusion with additional.bundles #1407

beside that yes the feature is confusing and is better not used at all but currently is kept for legacy reasons.