[p2-dev] Problem installing feature due to unhelpful version range requi

[Francis Upton <francisu@xxxxxxxx>]

I am using the standard PDE build scripts that call p2.generator to 
generate the metadata in my repository.  I have many features and 
products and they are all generated to the same repository.  So far so good.

The problem I'm having is the feature.group (e.g.  
com.oaklandsw.transform.feature.deps.gui.feature.group) in the 
content.xml get generated with a version range requirement that is 
exactly the versions of the plugins that are installed in the Eclipse 
build I'm running against.  In my source feature.xml, all of the 
versions are 0.0.0 which is what I want, but the p2.generator does not 
use my source, it uses the feature.xml that winds up in the build 
output, which has all of the versions put into it.

This means that when installing this feature, it will insist on having 
these exact versions of the plugins, so because I built it on a 3.4.0 
system, it will not properly install on a 3.4.1 system (it gets the 
usual cryptic error message about unable to satisfy the dependency).

If I manually hack the content.xml file to remove these range 
attributes, I run into a related problem.  My product depends on the 
org.eclipse.rcp feature group, and this feature group in the content.xml 
(like all of the others) has the exact plugin versions.  So the 
installation will again get a conflict (on swt this time) because the 
org.eclipse.rcp feature in the installation target does not match the 
one generated in the content.xml.

I'm sure somewhere I took a left turn that I should not have and there 
is an easy solution to this mess, but I have not yet found it.

Any ideas?

--
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
- Dr Seuss, Oh the Places You'll Go

Francis Upton IV
francis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tel   510 835 3123
Fax   510 779 5226
Cell  510 432 1589
Skype francisupton