Eclipse

Eclipse is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for software development.

See also Using Eclipse to develop GRASS Python programs
See also Using Eclipse 4.5 (Mars) on Windows 7

The CDT-plugin enables support for C/C++ development. While CVS-support is built in, additional plugins have to included to allow for access of SVN repositories.

Eclipse/CDT can be used as a convenient frontend for platform independent GRASS GIS development.

It can handle:

• Checkout of the latest sources from the SVN
• Code editing and refactoring
• GRASS-spedific Configure/Make/Make-Install - toolchain via wrapping in Ant-XML-fragements.
• Running of a freshly compiled GRASS-build from within Eclipse.

Please note: This approach aims at software development, not the development of a fat GRASS plugin within the Eclipse environment. If this is you interest, you might want to look up the JGRASS project.

What's needed -- Howto

• A sample Ant-wrapper-file -> paths etc which needs to be updated to local settings (see below). It's pretty much self explanatory. The file should be included in the Eclipse-project (top level).
• The build process is started from the GUI via ->Run ->External Tools ->Run As -> AntBuild -> Select the file "build.xml" here.
• When invoked, the file defaults to do the configuration step and stops afterwards.
• Use the OUTLINE window to fire up the following steps of compilation etc.
• The tasks (configure/make/make install) can also be concatenated -> "launch" shows how this is done: It includes the whole building chain and eventually starts the newly build GRASS from within Eclipse.

Note: Please be aware that building on a Windows machine will require a bit of fiddling with MSYS. The attached build.xml comes from a linux-environment.

Ant project file "build.xml"

 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 <project name="GRASS-Builder ant Wrapper for GRASS trunk (Peter Loewe 2008)" default="configure">
   <description>
           Ant Adapter fuer GRASS make
   </description>
       <target name="configure" description="GRASSbuilder: Configure">
               <exec executable="configure">
                       <arg value="--program-suffix=RE_eclipse" />
                       <arg value="--without-tcltk" />
                       <arg value="--without-fftw" />
               </exec>
       </target>
       <target name="configure-help" description="GRASSbuilder: Configure: Print  Help">
               <exec executable="configure">
                       <arg value="--help" />
               </exec>
        </target>
        <target name="make" description="GRASSbuilder: make" depends="configure">
              <exec executable="make">
              </exec>
        </target>
        <target name="make_solo" description="GRASSbuilder: make (solo)">
               <exec executable="make">
               </exec>
           </target>
        <target name="make_solo backup" description="GRASSbuilder: make (solo)">
               <exec executable="/home/grass/workspace/grass_trunk/make">
                   <arg value="-f"/>
                   <arg value="unix/Makefile"/>
                  <arg value="generic"/>
               </exec>
           </target>
          <target name="install" description="GRASSbuilder: install" depends="make">
           <exec executable="make">
                           <arg value="install"/>
                   </exec>
                   </target>
          <target name="install_solo" description="GRASSbuilder: install (solo)">
           <exec executable="make">
                           <arg value="install"/>
           </exec>
          </target>
          <target name="clean" description="GRASSbuilder: install" depends="make">
             <exec executable="make">
                   <arg value="clean"/>
                </exec>
               </target>
         <target name="clean_solo" description="GRASSbuilder: install (solo)">
                 <exec executable="make">
                     <arg value="clean"/>
                 </exec>
         </target>
       <target name="launch_solo" description="GRASSbuilder: launch (solo)">
                         <exec executable="./bin.i686-pc-linux-gnu/grass70">
                             <arg value="-gui"/>
                         </exec>
       </target>
       <target name="launch" description="GRASSbuilder: launch" depends="make">
                                 <exec executable="./bin.i686-pc-linux-gnu/grass70">
                                     <arg value="-gui"/>
                                 </exec>
       </target>
 </project>

References

• http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2008/5172/

pages 26 - 28: Coming of Age: The positive legacy of free and open-source software geographic information systems.