Creating a plug-in for the micropattern, pattern, or quality control rule

To create your own micropattern, pattern, or quality control rule, you must create a plug-in that contains all the necessary components.

Procedure

  1. Open the Plug-in Development perspective.
  2. Select File > New > Project.
  3. In the window that opens, select Plug-in Project from the Plug-in Development section. Then, click Next to open the creation wizard.
  4. In the Plug-in Project page of the wizard, enter a Project name and click Next.
  5. In the Content page, clear the following options if necessary: Generate an activator, a Java class that controls the plug-in's life cycle and This plug-in will make contributions to the UI. Then, click Next.
  6. In the Templates page, select a template.
    The templates that are specific to the Rational® Programming Patterns Software Development Kit start with RPP SDK. Explanations about the selected template are available when you click a template in the list. Four templates are available to create the following components:
    • Micropatterns that are dedicated to the COBOL code.
    • A pattern for the DDL generation.
    • Customized quality control rules to control the design of the Rational Programming Patterns Software Development Kit entities. These rules are based on the EMF model.
    • Customized quality control rules to control the generated source code of the Rational Programming Patterns Software Development Kit. This source code is different from the COBOL code.
  7. Click Next. The template creation wizard opens.
  8. Indicate the adequate values in the creation wizard. At first, you can keep the default values to get used to the tool. Then, if you are more familiar with it, you can modify the values to adapt them to your needs.
    Note: There is no creation wizard for the pattern that is dedicated to the DDL generation because this pattern is only a sample implementation of Java classes. You can use it to quickly start using the tool before you develop your own patterns.
  9. Click Finish.

Results

An operational plug-in is created. Its components are added to the Package Explorer view and the plug-in editor opens.

In its Dependencies tab, the plug-in contains the dependencies that are required to implement the Java classes that will use the Rational Programming Patterns Software Development Kit.

In the Extensions tab (corresponding to the content of the plugin.xml file), you can see the extensions that you need to extend.

The plug-in components contain the Java classes that will use the Rational Programming Patterns Software Development Kit. Their code is simple and gives an example of how to use the Rational Programming Patterns application programming interface. You can use these classes to start. If you are experienced, you can modify the code and customize it to create your own micropatterns, patterns, or quality control rules.

For more information on how to create a plug-in, see the sections Reference > Wizards and Dialogs > New Project Creation Wizards and Reference > Editors in the Plug-in Development Environment (PDE) User Guide of the Eclipse documentation.

You can then test the implementation of the micropattern, pattern, or quality control rule by running a new Eclipse application configuration from the Plug-in development. In the Main tab of the new configuration, you must select com.ibm.pdp.rpp.product.ide in Run a product.


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