8.1 Getting Started
At the end of this section you will run the simple Java program QuickTest.java which uses ECLiPSe. First of all though
you need to check that your Java SDK version is recent enough and that
your classpath correctly set up.
8.1.1 Check your Java SDK version
Use of the Java-ECLiPSe Interface requires an installation of the
Java SDK (Standard Developer's Kit) version 1.2.2 or later. If your
Java SDK installation is an earlier version than this or you do not
have the Java SDK on your machine, the latest version can be
downloaded from Sun Microsystems Inc. (http://www.sun.com).
8.1.2 Make the com.parctechnologies.eclipse package available in your class path
The Java-ECLiPSe Interface consists mainly of a Java package which is
used as a library by the Java programs you will write. This package is
included as a .jar file located within the ECLiPSe distribution at:
<eclipse_dir>/lib/eclipse.jar
You are free to copy eclipse.jar to a more convenient
location. However, to compile or run any Java programs which use the
package you must include the full path of eclipse.jar in your
classpath. For more information on using the classpath, please consult
your Java documentation.
8.1.3 Compile and run QuickTest.java
To test that everything is working as it should be, and to see a quick
example of the Java-ECLiPSe Interface at work, try compiling and
running the Java program QuickTest.java. This starts up an
ECLiPSe from Java and tells it to write a message to stdout. The
program can be found at
<eclipse_dir>/doc/examples/JavaInterface/QuickTest.java
After compilation, to run the program, start the Java interpreter as
you normally would but before the name of the class, supply the
command line option
-Declipse.directory=<eclipse_dir>
This tells Java where to find the ECLiPSe installation, so it can run
ECLiPSe. You should use this command line options when running
all other examples in this document. When you run QuickTest.java, you should get a single line of output: hello
world. How QuickTest.java works is explained in Section
8.2.