Building BIRT 2.5.1 from source

I am trying to build BIRT Version 2.5.1 from the available sources.

I managed to create a workspace where eclipse compiles the sources
and I am able to build jars using the build-files.

Since I need to make changes only to one of the BIRT-plugins I buildt a jar
for the plugin and tried to start eclipse after subsituting the old jar with
my newly created jar.

It appears that eclipse refuses to load the jar - probably due to missing
signatures in the jar.

Here are the questions I would like to pose in this context:
1) Could this be the cause? Do all jars have to be signed?
2) Is there a way to disable this signature checking mechanism?
3) Is there an eclipse version where the jars are without signatures?
4) Is there another way how to make code changes to BIRT?

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Peter Fopma

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Comments

JasonW

Peter,

You should not have to be signing the plugins. Which one did you change and can you post the change?

Jason

peterfopma

Jason,
thanks for your answer - there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel :-)

I would like to make changes to the pdf emitter and therefore need to build
the org.eclipse.birt.report.engine plugin.

Maybe there is a misunderstanding about how to build BIRT?

What I did so far is to unpack the sources for 2.5.1 und import them into a new
workspace as 'plug-ins and fragments' project - looks ok so far. Eclipse
compiles all the sources.

I created a build.xml file by right-clicking on the manifest-file and choosing
'create ant build file' from the 'PDE Tools' Menu.
Now it gets a bit weird... choosing a target where a compile is neccessary
yields lots of compile errors such as dependencies from other plugins could
not be resolved and generics are not supported prior to Java 5. But I am
using Java 5 and Eclipse is able to compile the sources...

Changing the build.xml to use the bin folder instead of the folder @dot
creates a jar file which has approximately the expected size but when I
substitute this jar into an eclipse environment it is not loaded and
therefore all the references to this plugin are missing.

Any idea what I am doing wrong?
Thanks
Peter

JasonW

Peter,

Once I get the plugin to build (with all the other sources), I generally just open up the plugin.xml and use the export wizard in the manifest editor. I just tried the ant build as well an got the same result. Which target are you using? Also can you email me your exported report engine plugin to jasonweathersby at windstream dot net?

Jason