Equinox (OSGI)/ Eclipse Plugin

OsgiEquinox plugin provides hotswap support for Eclipse platform development or development of Eclipse plugins. (Do not confuse it with common development in Eclipse!).

Configuration

Following options must be setup in eclipse.ini for debugee Eclipse instance:

 # use application classloader for the framework
-Dosgi.frameworkParentClassloader=app
 # development classpath that is added to each plugin classpath
-Dosgi.dev=[extra_classpath]
 # use dcevm as JVM
-XXaltjvm=dcevm
 # enable hotswapagent
-javaagent:PATH_TO_AGENT/hotswap-agent.jar
 # enable remote debugging on port 8000
-agentlib:jdwp=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,address=8000

extra_classpath is directory where compiled classes are deployed to either by IDE or some script. Classes from this path take precedence over classes from package’s jar. When debugger send a modified class file to JVM, HotswapAgent stores this file into extra_classpath directory.

It is also necessary to setup following hotswap-agent.properties:

extraClasspath=[extra_classpath]
osgiEquinox.debugMode=true

then connect the IDE debugger (eclipse, netbeans or idea) to port 8000 and happy hotswapping!