Since this article was created a new Subversion extension has started shipping from Oracle - for integration with Subversion please refer to the Subversion Developer Guide. This document can however be used for integration of other version management tools and as an intro to the external toole option in JDeveloper.
Introduction
Oracle JDeveloper 10.1.3 developer preview comes with built in support for
CVS and Clearcase as source control management tools, offering exceptional support
for working with these code repositories. But what can you do if you need to
use another version control tool?
One option is to use the JDeveloper
Extension SDK to build an extension that will integrate JDeveloper with
your tools. But building such an extension, although not a complex task, will
require you to learn the JDeveloper development API. In this how-to I'll describe
a quick and dirty way to build basic integration of third party tools that offer
a command line interface into JDeveloper. All this without writing a single
line of Java code.
Sounds too good to be true? - Let me introduce you to the "External Tools"
menu option.
The "External Tools" menu option (located in the tools menu option) provides
a dialog that lets you add calls to the command line of external tools. It also
allows you to provide parameters from the JDeveloper environment to the command
line. You can then add menu and context menu options to activate your extension.
In this how-to I'll show you how to integrate with Subversion, but the concepts
explained here can be applied to any other tool.
After installing subversion on your machine, the first operation you'll probably
want to do is create a subversion repository (unless you are going to connect
to an existing repository). To do this issue the following command from the
command line prompt:
Svnadmin create c:\svnrep
(c:\svnrep is the directory where you want the repository to be located).
Adding a Subversion Command to JDeveloper
Now that you have a repository, the next logical step is to import a project
into this repository. Let's add the ability to do project imports directly from
the JDeveloper development environment.
Activate the External Tools option and click the "New" button to
create a new command.
In the dialog that comes up choose "External Program" in step 1.
In Step 2 fill out the following details:
For program executable - svn.
For Arguments - write import and then press the insert button and from the
list select "Project Directory" then you need to add a pointer to your repository
in our example this will be: file:///c:/svnrep
.
The last argument should be a message that you provide when importing the module,
so add -m and then click the insert button and choose Prompt (place the prompt
between double quotes to handle spaces).
The complete arguments parameter should look like:
For the run directory click the insert button and add the project directory.
The next step lets you add a caption for the menu option "SVN Import Project"
is a good fit here. You can also specify a tooltip and an icon for your command.
In the next step you specify where you want the menu option to appear, I specified
here that the option should appear in the navigator context menu. And in the
next step we can specify when this option needs to be on - I chose "Always".
To test your new command, create a simple project in JDeveloper - stand on
the project node - right click and choose the new "svn Import" option
you have just added. You can see the svn command that was issued and the results
in the log window, and your code should now be checked-in inside the Subversion
repository.
Checking-out a Module
We'll skip adding a check-out project option to JDeveloper, instead just do
it manually from a command line.
The command to issue from the command line is:
Svn checkout file:///c:/svnrep
Project1.jpr
To use the code you just checked out in JDeveloper, create a new workspace without
a project. Then, choose file->open and locate the jpr file for the project
you just checked out.
Adding More Subversion Commands
The next three commands that we want to add to JDeveloper will enable us to
Add, Update and Commit files from the repository.
For the Add option the command attributes should be:
add ${file.path} file:///c:/svnrep
Add the menu to the Navigator context menu, and in the integration select "When
a file is selected or open in the code editor"
Similarly add the Update command - which gets the latest copy of the code from
the repository to your code directory:
The arguments for this command are:
update ${file.path}
Add the menu to the Navigator context menu, and in the integration select "When
a file is selected or open in the code editor"
For the commit command - that checks in a file after you changed it -the arguments
are:
commit -m "${prompt}" ${file.path}
Again add the menu to the Navigator context menu, and in the integration select
"When a file is selected or open in the code editor".
In a similar way you can also add the Diff command of Subversion, which allows
you to compare to a specific version of the code. Here are the attributes in
the JDeveloper command:
diff --revision "${prompt}" ${file.path}
Another useful command of Subversion is the Status command, which let you check
the status of the file in the repository compared to your local copy without
actually updating the local copy. Here are the attributes in the JDeveloper
command:
status --verbose ${file.path}
Now you are ready to develop and use Subversion. Have a look at this on-line
demo to see a basic working scenario.
Conclusion
This paper showed you the power of the "External Tool" menu option in JDeveloper
as a simple and fast way to add integration between JDeveloper and other tools.
For more powerful integration, check out the JDeveloper
Extension SDK and the code samples that come with it.
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