Tycho build for beginners. Where to specify the product file?

[Dani-Hub]

I'm trying to understand the tycho PDE build (as replacement for the no longer supported PDE build), unfortunately the documentation is rather sparse. Just now I try to understand where and how to specify the product file for a build. According to https://tycho.eclipseprojects.io/doc/latest/StructuredBuild.html there can be a products module folder. But what precisely is the expected structure of each entry? Is it alternatively possible to provide a maven path information that point to the product file?

[phermsdorf]

I always found it useful to look at some of the tycho it tests like e.g. this one:

https://github.com/eclipse-tycho/tycho/tree/main/tycho-its/projects/multiPlatform.product

(the product config is in the .rcp project)
You can see the project stucture and configuration and build something similar from that.

[Dani-Hub]

Thanks for the quick reply! What I don't understand is that no-where in the pom.xml is this product file specified to be a product file. So how does the tycho build understand that it is has to use this concrete file? I'm asking because we have already the product file within some other dependency contained. The old PDE build did allow to specify a path to such a product file. Is this also possible using the tycho build?

[phermsdorf]

The documentation for tycho-p2-director:materialize-products here https://tycho.eclipseprojects.io/doc/main/tycho-p2-director-plugin/materialize-products-mojo.html states:

If the project contains more than one product file, you need to choose for which ones you want to create distribution archives.

So i guess because there is only one product file it does not need be specified exactly.

[laeubi]

And just in case, you can't (easily) place the product inside a folder of the plugin or feature, just make it an own folder and then Tycho will see there is a product and use it.

[laeubi]

But what precisely is the expected structure of each entry?

Simply create a folder (in case of the example its cool-product and place the product file in it.

Is it alternatively possible to provide a maven path information that point to the product file?

Yes you can always reference the folder in maven <modules> section.

unfortunately the documentation is rather sparse

Please don't hesitate to enhance it if you feel something is missing, it is just edit some markdown files here:

https://github.com/eclipse-tycho/tycho/tree/main/src/site/markdown