Getting Involved

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

Downloading

Please download a fresh Eclipse Indigo (3.7) 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 recommend some additional plug-ins for Development:

1. Mylyn Connector: Trac (optional)
   If you have read access to the ProB tickets you should install this connector. Like GEF it is available from the Helios update site (search for Trac).
2. Findbugs(optional)
   We strongly recommend to install and use the Findbugs plug-in. 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=512M
-Xms512m
-Xmx2048m

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

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

Checkout sources

The sources are available using git from https://github.com/bendisposto/prob

Content of the repository

If you want to develop within the Rodin tool, you need de.bmotionstudio.gef.editor, de.bmotionstudio.rodin, de.prob.core, de.prob.plugin, de.prob.ui and maybe the feature de.prob2.feature.

de.bmotionstudio.gef.editor

BMotion Studio sources

de.bmotionstudio.rodin

Rodin UI bindings for BMotion Studio

de.prob.core

ProB Core plug-in (contins the Prolog binaries for all supported platforms)

de.prob.plugin

Rodin UI bindings

de.prob.standalone.feature

Feature for the ProB standalone version

de.prob.standalone

UI extensions for the standalone version of ProB

de.prob.ui

GUI

de.prob.update_site

Required for building the update site with buckminster. Most likely you can ignore this

de.prob2.feature

The feature for the Rodin Plug-in version

Setup target platform

Within the de.prob.core plug-in you can find a target definition file (prob_target.target). Open that file within Eclipse and click on set as target platform (upper right corner).

Setup Mylyn

If you have access to the bugtracker tickets you should include them into your Eclipse installation. It is required to install Mylyn Connector Trac from the Helios installation site. Open the Task Repository View and create a new repository using the trac connector. Use http://cobra.cs.uni-duesseldorf.de/trac as the server url. Fill out the wizard as shown in the screenshot and click on validate settings.

Code Formatting

We use "Format on save" using the default Eclipse settings. You can enable it under Window -> Preferences -> Java -> Editor -> Save Actions (on Mac: Eclipse -> Preferences ...):

1. Enable "Perform the selected actions on save"
2. Enable "Format source code"
3. Enable "Organize imports"

The Prolog Sources

If you want to contribute to the Prolog part of ProB, if you want to extend the ProB API, or need them as reference, you need the Prolog sources which can be checked out from https://cobra.cs.uni-duesseldorf.de/prob/trunk/prolog/ using subversion (use, e.g., the command "svn co https://cobra.cs.uni-duesseldorf.de/prob/trunk/prolog/ ProB" to check out the sources). To compile the sources you need a SICStus Prolog licence.