Do not require Eclipse to build

[FroMage]

There's got to be a way to generate the OSGi metadata without Eclipse.

[maxandersen]

can you point to where you do it now ?

maven has tycho tasks to generate p2 metadata but not sure what it is exactly you need ?

[FroMage]

Where we do it now is invoking Eclipse here: https://github.com/ceylon/ceylon-dist/blob/master/osgi/build.xml

[mickaelistria]

What do you call OSGi metadata? MANIFEST.MF or p2 metadata or other provisioning standard?

[maxandersen]

I assume https://github.com/ceylon/ceylon-dist/blob/master/osgi/build.xml#L215 is what you want replaced ?

well, you either need to do it this way (using eclipse) or use maven/tycho (that bundles the parts of eclipse that generates p2 metadata) or ..reimplement tycho for ant? (can't ant call maven tasks somehow?)

[FroMage]

What do you call OSGi metadata? MANIFEST.MF or p2 metadata

p2 repo.

[FroMage]

@maxandersen yes that's the one. If we can use tycho from ant then that'd be an option.

[mickaelistria]

I don't believe using Tycho from Ant would be easier. In order to use Tycho, you have to deal with target-platforms and other stuff that makes that you have much stuff to maintain. Note that behind the hood, Tycho starts a minimal RCP application to invoke p2. You could use this zip: http://search.maven.org/remotecontent?filepath=org/eclipse/tycho/tycho-bundles-external/0.21.0/tycho-bundles-external-0.21.0.zip instead of a full Eclipse (and use the java task instead of exec).

I remember @prapicault explained me one that p2 uses OSGi services. but that by itself it wasn't much depending on Eclipse/OSGi framework and that the code could run in a plain Java process (or an Ant task). However, this would requiring some efforts in providing alternative assembly of the various classes and services p2 provides and uses.
So current status is that there is apparently nothing available to create p2 metadata without Eclipse, but that it wouldn't be difficult to do it.