Getting Involved

This page describes how to set up a development environment for ProB.

Downloading

Please download a fresh Eclipse Helios (3.6) for RCP Developer. We will assume that you work with a fresh copy of Eclipse in the following description. After downloading unzip it to a folder of your choice (just in case: avoid spaces inside the path).

Setup

Beside the default Eclipse, we require some additional plug-ins for Development:

1. Subclipse 1.6.x
   Install the Subclipse plugin, comprehensive instructions for installations are availiable from the http://subclipse.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectProcess?pageID=p4wYuA Subclipse Website]. If at some point you receive errors about a missing JavaHL you can switch to the SVNKit Interface in Preferences | Team | SVN or you can install JavaHL (Instructions http://subclipse.tigris.org/wiki/JavaHL). You can also use subversive from the Helios update site (but in this description we will assume you use subclipse).
2. Graphical Editing Framework (GEF)
   GEF can be obtained from the Helios update site. Open the Plugin_installation Facility (Help | Install New Software), select the Helios Update site and search for GEF. You maight have to uncheck "Group items by category"
3. Findbugs
   We strongly recommend to install and use the Findbugs plugin. Instructions can be found on the Findbugs Website.

Also you can tweak the eclipse.ini file to improve performance. In particular you should increase the size of heap space! You should not use a value greater than your physical memory.

-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
-Xms512m
-Xmx2048m

I use the following additional parameters (no guarantee that they actually help):

-Xss1M
-server
-XX:+DoEscapeAnalysis
-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC
-XX:PermSize=256M
-XX:MaxPermSize=512M

Checkout sources

We have prepared an Eclipse Team Set that contains all subprojects, i.e. ProB core, B-Motion Studio, AnimationScript, Disprover and the standalone Version. It also includes the Rodin release used for ProB.

You can also use a prebuild binary of Rodin as the target platform. However in this case you need to install GEF inside Rodin and set the installation as the target platform in Preferences | Plug-in Development | Target Platform.

Setup Problem Filter

We aim to have zero warnings in ProB. Rodin however has warnings, therefor we have to create a filter for the Problems View (click on the triangle in the problems view and select: Configure Contents

Create a new Content as shown in the Screenshot (everything except Scope is the default value)