FAQ How do I create an application?

To create an application, you need a plug-in that adds an extension to the org.eclipse.core.runtime.applications extension point. An example application definition from a plugin.xml file is as follows:

   <extension id="helloworld" point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.applications">
      <application>
         <run class="org.eclipse.faq.HelloWorld"/>
      </application>
   </extension>

The class attribute of the run element must specify a class that implements org.eclipse.core.boot.IPlatformRunnable. Here is the source of a trivial application:

   public class HelloWorld implements IPlatformRunnable {
      public Object run(Object args) throws Exception {
         System.out.println("Hello from Eclipse application");
         return EXIT_OK;
      }
   }

To run the application, you need to specify the fully qualified ID of your application extension definition, using the application command-line argument when launching Eclipse:

   eclipse -application org.eclipse.faq.helloworld.helloworld

The fully qualified extension ID is computed by prepending the plug-in ID to the simple extension ID from the plugin.xml file. In this example, the plug-in ID is org.eclipse.faq.helloworld, and the simple extension ID is helloworld.

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This FAQ was originally published in Official Eclipse 3.0 FAQs. Copyright 2004, Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. This text is made available here under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0.