PDE builder and DEBUG

6 Great Links for Eclipse Build Automation with PDE Build

http://eclipsenuggets.blogspot.com/2007/09/6-great-links-for-eclipse-build.html

Getting Auto-Resizing TableColumns the Easy Way

Build update site: http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.platform/msg25629.html

TO DEBUG:

Create Debug Launch Configuration

1. §Select “Debug as >Ant Build..” from context menu of PDE Build’s scripts\build.xml file in the package explorer. Select the second “Ant Build”.
2. §Select the “Main” tab and set the Base Directory to “${workspace_loc:/org.eclipse.pde.build/scripts}”
3. §Select the “Build” tab and deselect “Build before launch”
4. §Select the “JRE” tab and select “Run in the same JRE as the workspace”.
5. §Select the “Properties” tab
6. §Deselect “Use Global properties…”.
7. §Add a property named “builder”. Set value to the path to the root of the jdt-builder-sample project on your file system.
8. §Add a property “eclipse.running”. Set value to “true” if not already set.
   
9. §Click Debug. Run to each breakpoint or step through as you wish.

TIP 1: set "outputUpdateJars=false"
Otherwise, all pluins will be exported as jar. Even the native library fragments, then Eclipse can not find the *.dll *.so from the jar, then built product can not startup.
The error message will be :
*The executable launcher was unable to locate its companion shared library*
Which implies that either that launcher fragment does not exist, or that it is not in folder form (the launcher can't get the library out of a jar).