[pde-ui-dev] Finding API usage problems in batch mode

[Darin Wright <Darin_Wright@xxxxxxxxxx>]

For the interest of those wanting to
create "illegal API usage" reports during a batch build process,
it should be a little simpler now. We've refactored code such that a search
can be called from an integrated builder or batch process. See the new
class "ApiUseAnalyzer". It can be called to find illegal API
use in an entire profile, component, or specific scope within a component.
It returns the illegal usages as a collection of IReferences that can be
processed as desired.

Darin Wright

----- Forwarded by Darin
Wright/Ottawa/IBM on 01/25/2008 01:09 PM -----

Darin Wright/Ottawa/IBM@IBMCA
Sent by: pde-ui-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

01/16/2008 12:06 PM

Please respond to
"Eclipse PDE UI developers list." <pde-ui-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>

To	pde-ui-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
cc
Subject	[pde-ui-dev] re: PDE API tooling questions

I'm posting this discussion on the mailing list to benefit others interested
leveraging API tooling features... 

Hi Barys, 

API tooling is scheduled to have its "graduation review" with
the EMO on Jan 30th. You can see our graduation review link off this page
- http://www.eclipse.org/projects/whatsnew.php. Assuming we pass the review,
the code will be graduated to the Eclipse SDK shortly after that (likely
the week of Feb 11th). So, API tooling exists as code in the CVS repository,
but will not be available as a binary download as part of the SDK until
that time. 

There's nothing to stop you from experimenting with the code right now
- in fact, I encourage you to do so. My only disclaimer is that the code
is under development - APIs are not frozen. In fact, as you will see in
the slides, we are not planning to ship a public API in the first release.
So, you need to be willing to accept migration effort as API tooling evolves.

> I'd like to start with "API 
> Usage Reporting" feature from http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.
> php/PDE_UI_Incubator_ApiTools#API_Usage_Reporting_.28Batch_Mode.29.
> 
> 1) What is the current state of this feature? 

Infrastructure to support API usage analysis exists. There is *no* command
line tool as of yet. We do intend to produce rudimentary API usage reports
with Eclipse builds (we will likey write some Ant tasks to help with this).
The support is designed to work in "pure Java" mode (i.e. no
OSGi or workspace required). So you would need to write a Java program
that calls our provisional APIs. Below is a description of what you would
need to do. Perhaps you could review this, and provide some feedback on
how we can make this more consumable for you. 

For example, in the SDK, we analyze a project for API usage problems when
it is built. We do this by collecting all of its prequisite bundles' API
descriptions to create search criteria for elements that have usage restrictions.
We then search the project being built. 

Steps: 

* Create an API profile (translates to a product made up of binary bundles/plug-ins).
 - use the Factory to do this (based on a location, name, id, version,
and execution environment description file) 
* For each bundle in the product, create and add the corresponding API
component to the profile 
 - API components are created from the profile, based on location
* Use the API search engine to search for specific API usage problems
 - define the scope to search, and the problems you are searching for
 - you could look at the APIToolBuilder as an example that searches components
for illegal API use 
* Create a report with the search results (references)
 - we do not currently create reports, we create problem markers in the
SDK 

Note: currently an API component initializes its "API description"
from the bundle's manifest.mf (i.e. defines which packages are API), and
from the .api_description file in the root of the bundle (jar or folder).
The .api_description file is the same format as component.xml files - but
also allows visibility and usage flags to be set on members within types.
This means you'd need to have some way of injecting the api description
files into the bundles. We plan to do this with regular Eclipse builds.
Here's an example file: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<component name="Debug Core"> 
    <plugin id="org.eclipse.debug.core"/>
    <package name="org.eclipse.debug.core">
        <type extend="false" name="DebugEvent"/>
        <type extend="false" name="DebugException"/>
        <type extend="false" instantiate="false"
name="DebugPlugin"/> 
        <type implement="false" name="IBreakpointManager"/>
        <type implement="false" name="IExpressionManager"/>
        <type implement="false" name="ILaunchConfiguration">
            <field name="ATTR_SOURCE_LOCATOR_ID"
reference="false"/> 
            <field name="LAUNCH_CONFIGURATION_FILE_EXTENSION"
reference="false"/> 
            <method name="getName"
reference="false" signature="()Ljava/lang/String;"/>
        </type> 
        <type implement="false" name="ILaunchConfigurationType"/>
        <type implement="false" name="ILaunchConfigurationWorkingCopy"/>
        <type implement="false" name="ILaunchDelegate"/>
        <type implement="false" name="ILaunchManager"/>
        <type implement="false" name="ILaunchMode"/>
        <type implement="false" name="IMemoryBlockManager"/>
    </package> 
    <package name="org.eclipse.debug.core.model">
        <type implement="false" name="IWatchExpression"/>
    </package> 
    <package name="org.eclipse.debug.core.sourcelookup">
        <type implement="false" name="ISourceContainerType"/>
        <type implement="false" name="ISourcePathComputer"/>
    </package> 
    <package name="org.eclipse.debug.core.sourcelookup.containers">
        <type extend="false" name="ArchiveSourceContainer"/>
        <type extend="false" instantiate="false"
name="ContainerSourceContainer"/> 
        <type extend="false" name="DefaultSourceContainer"/>
        <type extend="false" name="DirectorySourceContainer"/>
        <type extend="false" name="ExternalArchiveSourceContainer"/>
        <type extend="false" name="FolderSourceContainer"/>
        <type extend="false" name="LocalFileStorage"/>
        <type extend="false" name="ProjectSourceContainer"/>
        <type extend="false" name="WorkspaceSourceContainer"/>
        <type extend="false" name="ZipEntryStorage"/>
    </package> 
</component> 


> 2) Which version of PDE API tooling should I pick up that has this
> feature working? 

The code is all in HEAD. There are instructions on how to get the code
here: http://wiki.eclipse.org/PDE_UI_Incubator_ApiTools#Getting_the_Source_Code

> 3) What are the environment requirements (Eclipse/JRE version, etc)?

We require the latest I-build of Eclipse, and a 1.4 JRE. Our test suite
requires a 1.5 JRE. 

> 4) Are there usage examples I can follow? 

The test suite provides the best examples. API usage problems are found
by performing a search (search a scope for specific types of problems).
The SearchEngineTests might be a good place to start.

> 
> Any other pointers to speed up the adoption of the tool?

We have tried to write good javadoc and keep it up to date. But, you will
likely need to ask questions :-) 

Darin _______________________________________________
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