将纯Java项目作为类路径添加到eclipse插件

Question

I have a plain Java project (not a plugin project) which I want to add to a classpath of a eclipse plugin which I am developing. But in web projects I can add that project as a build path and it works fine. But I tried same thing in eclipse plugin, I am able to compile successfully, but at run time I am getting java.lang.ClassNotFoundException .

I know OSGi quite well and I know how to add OSGi into an classpath (using export-packages) but what I want is to add Standard, non-osgi project into an classpath, so that I wont' get runtime errors. Is there anyway I can achieve this?

I can export project as a jar file or make it as a plugin project and it would work fine. But that's not my option currently because, still that API is in pre-alpha stage, and there would be lot of changes going on. So I am trying to avoid pain of exporting it as jar file everytime. Is there any option for me other than this?

Answer 1

I have a similar situation: I want non-OSGi Maven dependencies integrated into the classpath of my plugin. I succeeded with a roundabout solution, which I think is the best I could get.

I have a build step outside of Eclipse where I copy the class files of the dependency into the plugin's lib folder. The lib folder is specified in MANIFEST.MF as an entry in Bundle-ClassPath and (here comes the hack) as a source folder in build.properties . That was the only way to make the plugin work both when launched from within Eclipse and when exported.