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Using Eclipse

Red Hat Developer Tools 2.1

Installing Eclipse 4.7.1 and first steps with the application

Supriya Takkhi

Red Hat Developer Group Documentation Team

Abstract

Information for users installing and starting to use Red Hat Developer Tools.

Chapter 1. Eclipse 4.7.1
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Red Hat Developer Tools, available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, includes Eclipse 4.7.1, which is based on the Eclipse Foundation’s Oxygen release train. Note that rh-eclipse47 requires the rh-java-common collection.

Eclipse is a powerful development environment that provides tools for each phase of the development process. It integrates a variety of disparate tools into a unified environment to create a rich development experience, provides a fully configurable user interface, and features a pluggable architecture that allows for an extension in a variety of ways. For instance, the Valgrind plug-in allows programmers to perform memory profiling, that is otherwise performed on the command line through the Eclipse user interface.

Figure 1.1. Sample Eclipse Session

Sample Eclipse Session
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Sample Eclipse Session

Eclipse provides a graphical development environment alternative to traditional interaction with command line tools and it is a welcome alternative for developers who do not want to use the command line interface. The traditional, mostly command line-based Linux tools suite such as gcc or gdb and Eclipse offer two distinct approaches to programming.

For an overview to develop applications for Red Hat JBoss Middleware or for support for OpenShift Tools, see Red Hat JBoss Developer Studio.

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Table 1.1. Eclipse Components Included in rh-eclipse47
PackageDescription

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-cdt

The C/C++ Development Tooling (CDT) that provides features and plug-ins for development in these two languages.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-changelog

The ChangeLog plug-in that allows you to create and maintain changelog files.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-dtp

Eclipse Data Tools Platform Project

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-egit

EGit, a team provider for Eclipse that provides features and plug-ins for interaction with Git repositories.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-emf

The Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) that allows you to build applications based on a structured data model.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-epp-logging

The Eclipse error reporting tool.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-gcov

The GCov plug-in that integrates the GCov test coverage program with Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-gef

The Graphical Editing Framework (GEF) that allows you to create a rich graphical editor from an existing application model.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-gprof

The Gprof plug-in that integrates the Gprof performance analysis utility with Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-jdt

The Eclipse Java development tools (JDT) plug-in.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-jgit

JGit, a Java implementation of the Git revision control system.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-manpage

The Man Page plug-in that allows you to view manual pages in Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-mpc

The Eclipse Marketplace Client.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-mylyn

Mylyn, a task management system for Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-oprofile

The OProfile plug-in that integrates OProfile with Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-pde

The Plugin Development Environment for developing Eclipse plugins.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-perf

The Perf plug-in that integrates the perf tool with Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-ptp

A subset of the PTP project that provides support for synchronized projects.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-pydev

A full featured Python IDE for Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-recommenders

Code Recommenders

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-remote

The Remote Services plug-in that provides an extensible remote-services framework.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-rpm-editor

The Eclipse Spec File Editor that allows you to maintain RPM spec files.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-rse

The Remote System Explorer (RSE) framework that allows you to work with remote systems from Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-systemtap

The SystemTap plug-in that integrates SystemTap with Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-valgrind

The Valgrind plug-in that integrates Valgrind with Eclipse.

rh-eclipse47-eclipse-webtools

The Eclipse Webtools plug-ins.

To install Eclipse you must first enable the Red Hat Developer Tools repositories.

  • Enable the rhel-7-server-devtools-rpms repository on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server or enable the rhel-7-workstation-devtools-rpms repository on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation
  • Enable the rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms repository on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server or enable the rhel-workstation-rhscl-7-rpms repository on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation
Note

Red Hat Developer Tools is not supported on the Client or the ComputeNode variant.

To enable the Red Hat Developer Tools repositories:

  1. Run the following commands as the root user: 

    # subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-7-server-devtools-rpms
# subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-server-rhscl-7-rpms
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    Note

    In the above command, depending on the variant of Red Hat Enterprise Linux that you are using, Server or Workstation, the commands will be:

    • For the Workstation variant: subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-7-workstation-devtools-rpms
    • For the Server variant: subscription-manager repos --enable rhel-7-server-devtools-rpms

    For developers, we recommend using Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for access to the widest range of development tools.

    For more information on registering and attaching subscriptions, see Using and Configuring Red Hat Subscription Management.

  2. To add the Red Hat Developer Tools key to your system, run the following commands as the root user: 

    # cd /etc/pki/rpm-gpg
# wget -O RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-devel https://www.redhat.com/security/data/a5787476.txt
# rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-devel
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1.2. Installing Eclipse
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The Eclipse development environment is provided as a collection of RPM packages.

  1. To install Eclipse, run the following commands as the root user: 

    yum install rh-eclipse47
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    For a list of available components, see Table 1.1, “Eclipse Components Included in rh-eclipse47”.

Note

rh-eclipse47 fully supports C, C++, and Java development, but does not provide support for the Fortran programming language.

1.3. Using Eclipse
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To start rh-eclipse47:

  1. Click Applications > Programming > Red Hat Eclipse, or type the following at a shell prompt: 

    scl enable rh-eclipse47 eclipse
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  2. During its startup, Eclipse prompts you to select a workspace that is a directory in which you want to store your projects. You can either use ~/workspace/, which is the default option, or click Browse to browse your file system and select a custom directory. Additionally, you can select the Use this as the default and do not ask again check box to prevent Eclipse from displaying this dialog box the next time you run this development environment.
  3. Click OK to confirm the selection and proceed with the startup.

To use rh-eclipse47 with support for the GNU Compiler Collection and binutils from Red Hat Developer Toolset:

  1. Ensure that devtoolset-Developer Toolset 7-toolchain is installed and run the application as described in Section 1.3, “Using Eclipse”. The rh-eclipse47 Collection uses the Red Hat Developer Toolset toolchain by default.

For detailed instructions on how to install the devtoolset-Developer Toolset 7-toolchain package on your system, see Installing Red Hat Developer Toolset.

Important

If you are working on a project that you previously built with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux version of the GNU Compiler Collection, make sure that you discard all previous build results. To do so, open the project in Eclipse and select Project > Clean from the menu.

To use rh-eclipse47 with support for the toolchain distributed with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, change the configuration of the project to use absolute paths to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system versions of gcc, g++, and as.

To configure Eclipse to explicitly use the Red Hat Enterprise Linux system versions of the tools for the current project:

  1. In the C/C++ perspective, click Project > Properties to open the project properties.
  2. In the menu on the left-hand side of the dialog box, click C/C++ Build > Settings.
  3. Click the Tool Settings tab.

  4. If you are working on a C project:

    1. Select GCC C Compiler or Cross GCC Compiler and change the value of the Command field to: 

      /usr/bin/gcc
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    2. Select GCC C Linker or Cross GCC Linker and change the value of the Command field to: 

      /usr/bin/gcc
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    3. Select GCC Assembler or Cross GCC Assembler and change the value of the Command field to: 

      /usr/bin/as
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

  5. If you are working on a C++ project:

    1. Select GCC C Compiler* or *Cross G Compiler and change the value of the Command field to: 

      /usr/bin/g++
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    2. Select GCC C Compiler or Cross GCC Compiler and change the value of the Command field to: 

      /usr/bin/gcc
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    3. Select GCC C Linker* or *Cross G Linker and change the value of the Command field to: 

      /usr/bin/g++
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap

    4. Select GCC Assembler or Cross GCC Assembler and change the value of the Command field to: 

      /usr/bin/as
      Copy to Clipboard Toggle word wrap
  6. Click OK to save the configuration changes.

1.4. Additional Resources
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A detailed description of Eclipse and all its features is beyond the scope of this document. For more information, see the following resources.

Installed Documentation

  • Eclipse includes a built-in Help system that provides extensive documentation for each integrated feature and tool. This greatly decreases the initial time investment required for new developers to become fluent in its use. The use of this Help section is detailed in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Developer Guide linked below.

See Also

  • Chapter 2, Changes Since Developer Tools 1.0 provides a comprehensive list of features and improvements over the Eclipse development environment included in the previous release of Developer Tools.
  • The Red Hat Developer Toolset chapter in the User Guide provides an overview of Red Hat Developer Toolset and more information on how to install it on your system.
  • The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) chapter in the User Guide provides information on how to compile programs written in C, C++, and Fortran on the command line.

Chapter 2. Changes Since Developer Tools 1.0
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Note

The version number of Red Hat Developer Tools is raised from 1.0 to 2.1 to synchronize its version numbers with Red Hat Development Suite 2.1. Note that there will be no release of Red Hat Developer Tools 2.0.

Red Hat Developer Tools is distributed with Eclipse 4.7.1 and other plugins from the Oxygen release train, which provide a number of bug fixes and feature enhancements over the Red Hat Developer Tools 1.0 version. Following is a comprehensive list of new features and compatibility changes in this release. For details on how to use these new features, see the built-in Eclipse documentation.

The following features have been added since the release of Eclipse platform and plugins included in Red Hat Developer Tools 1.0:

  • Eclipse Platform has been updated to version 4.7.1 from 4.7.0. This is a maintenance release and it contains many bug fixes and optimizations.

  • Eclipse CDT has been updated to version 9.3 from 9.2.1. This release includes a number of enhancements like:

    • Quick fixes have been added for a variety of build errors generated by the gcc compiler.
    • Support for two new C++14 language features has been added: return type deduction and generic lambdas.
    • Improved autocomplete and content assist.
    • Improved navigation for 'auto' types to open the deduced type.
    • For detailed notes, see https://wiki.eclipse.org/CDT/User/NewIn93
  • Eclipse Linux Tools has been updated to version 6.1.1 from 6.1.0.
  • Eclipse Mylyn has been updated to version 3.23.1 from 3.23.0.
  • Eclipse DLTK have been updated to version 5.8.1 from 5.8.0.

  • Eclipse Pydev have been updated to version 5.9.2 from 5.8.0 including changes like:

    • Optimization in editor highlighting when dealing with huge files.
    • Added support for having isort as the engine for import sorting.
    • For detailed notes, see http://www.pydev.org/history_pydev.html.
  • Eclipse Webtools have been updated to version 3.9.1 from 3.9.0.
  • The new Eclipse Data Tools Platform component provides frameworks and tools to access relational databases and various other data sources. For details, see https://www.eclipse.org/datatools/.
  • The new Code Recommenders component provides IDE improvements like intelligent code completions. For details, see https://www.eclipse.org/recommenders/.

Chapter 3. Known Issues in Eclipse 4.7.1
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This section details the Known Issues in Eclipse 4.7.1.

3.1. Debuginfo Conflicts
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Cause: When a user attempts to install a debuginfo package for this collection, for example: rh-eclipse47-eclipse-cdt-debuginfo, the contents may conflict with the same packages from the earlier collections.

Consequence: The installation of the rh-eclipse47 debuginfo package may fail if the same debuginfo package from the rh-eclipse46 collection is installed.

Workaround: To use debuginfo for the rh-eclipse47 collection, debuginfo packages from the rh-eclipse46 collection should first be uninstalled using the command yum remove rh-eclipse46*debuginfo.

Result: The installation of the debuginfo packages from the rh-eclipse47 collection is successful.

3.2. Tycho Conflicts
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Cause: The rh-eclipse47-tycho package conflicts with the same package from the earlier collections, for example: rh-eclipse46-tycho.

Consequence: The installation of rh-eclipse47-tycho package may fail when rh-eclipse46-tycho package is already installed.

Workaround: Note that tycho is only needed by users who want to build or re-build Eclipse or its plug-ins. If needed, the rh-eclipse46-tycho package should be uninstalled using the command yum remove rh-eclipse46-tycho before attempting to install the rh-eclipse47-tycho package.

Result: The installation of the rh-eclipse47-tycho package is successful.

Legal Notice
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Copyright © 2017 Red Hat, Inc.
The text of and illustrations in this document are licensed by Red Hat under a Creative Commons Attribution–Share Alike 3.0 Unported license ("CC-BY-SA"). An explanation of CC-BY-SA is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/. In accordance with CC-BY-SA, if you distribute this document or an adaptation of it, you must provide the URL for the original version.
Red Hat, as the licensor of this document, waives the right to enforce, and agrees not to assert, Section 4d of CC-BY-SA to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.
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