Where is the source for PLPToolStatic located?

[Zachary Moore]

Some portions of PLPTool reference contents of the PLPToolStatic jar, which implies that (at least some portions of) PLPToolStatic are not part of the PLPTool source.

Additionally, many components are present in both the PLPTool source and PLPToolStatic.jar. When making changes to the PLPTool source, how should PLPTool static be updated? What steps should be taken to ensure that immediate external dependencies (projects within the PLP organization) are not adversely affected? Where can I build PLPToolStatic from source?

[Christopher Mar]

You can build PLPTool.jar using Ant (I believe the older build file created PLPToolStatic.jar, but it looks like the name in build file has changed since 5.0). Navigate to the following directory within the repository: 

\reference\sw\PLPTool

Use the following command (leave off "run" at the end if you don't want the compiled PLPTool to be opened).

ant compile jar run

I am not sure how to build the PLPTool-Distrib, which will be important for us to know when we are ready to release a new version. It looks like there are Windows Batch Files and Bash scripts in the directory that will do this, but I haven't tried using them yet.

- Chris

[Wira Mulia]

By default the ant scripts will not combine the main PLPTool jar archive and its dependencies. PLPTool currently has two libraries it depends on: commons-compress for PLP project file and the rxtx java component. If PLPTool is built with "ant jar" command, the PLPTool archive will be in dist/PLPTool.jar and the libraries will be in the dist/lib directory.

The "ant package-for-store" command, in addition to building PLPTool, will include the libraries into PLPToolStatic.jar and generate the correct manifest for the archive. This JAR file then can be distributed by itself to be run anywhere. The native RXTX library (dll for windows, .so for Linux) will need to be distributed separately, however. I don't know if it is possible to actually include native libraries into the JAR file.