# ion-eclipse-plugin

**Repository Path**: mirrors_amzn/ion-eclipse-plugin

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: ion-eclipse-plugin
- **Description**: An Eclipse plugin for working with files using the Amazon Ion data format.
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: Apache-2.0
- **Default Branch**: master
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2020-08-08
- **Last Updated**: 2026-02-21

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

# Getting Started

This project uses a Git submodule to pull in the Ion test data suite.
You must either clone this project via `git clone --recursive` or update
the submodule afterwards via `git submodule update --init`. If you don't
do this, the unit tests will fail (obscurely, when run through Maven).

## Installing Eclipse

Regardless of whether you use the Oomph installer or the full download, you
want to install the "Eclipse DSL Tools" product. This includes the Plug-in
Development Tools (PDT) and Xtext features used by this project. The code
requires Xtext 2.10; that comes standard with Neon but if you're using Mars
you'll need to update those components.

When you import this project into your Eclipse workbench, be sure to enable
the **Search for nested projects** option.  Otherwise you'll only get the
parent project, which only coordinates the build process, and not the numerous
subprojects that contain the actual plugin code.

## Building in Eclipse

Most of the plug-in's code is generated by Xtext. When you first open the
project, you'll need to generate this code manually.

  * Go to **Preferences | Plug-in Development | Target Platform** and select
    `software.amazon.ionxtext.target`.
  * From the `software.amazon.ionxtext` subproject (not the parent project),
    browse to `src/software/amazon/ionxtext`. Select `GenerateIon.mwe2`
    and **Run As | MWE2 Workflow**.
  * You'll probably get an error indicating that problems exist in the project,
    but that's because you've not yet generated necessary code, so proceed.
  * You may need to clean all projects to eliminate errors.

You'll also need to do this when you modify various core resources such as the
grammar definition file `Ion.xtext`.

## Dependency Problems?

If Eclipse is unable to resolve required plugin bundles, you may have a mangled
target platform definition. Go to
**Preferences | Plug-in Development | Target Platform**, select
`software.amazon.ionxtext.target`, and **Reload**.

If the problem is with classes in `software.amazon.ion` (_i.e._, the ion-java
library), then you've probably not built this project from Maven. That's needed
in order to copy POM-first dependencies from the Maven repository into a local
`pom-first-plugins` directory that's linked into the target platform.

# Developing in Eclipse

## Running the Tests

  * Right-click on the `ionxtext.tests` project and **Run As | JUnit Test**.
  * Recommended to mark the resulting Run Configuration as a favorite for easy
    access at all times.

Do you see `Could not initialize class software.amazon.ionxtext.tests.UnitTestUtils`?
It's probably failing to find the `iontests` content, which means you forgot
to `git submodule init`.

## Running in a child Eclipse instance

  * Right-click on the `ionxtext` project and **Run As | Eclipse Application**.