EclipseScript

About

EclipseScript is an Eclipse plug-in providing support for scripting the development environment using javascript. It provides a simple API to interact with the editor while also exposing the full Eclipse platform and plug-in system.

Installing

Eclipse 3.6 or later and java 1.6 is required. Update site URL:

Writing and running scripts

EclipseScript scripts are javascript files inside the workspace with the file extension .eclipse.js. As a start, create a new file with the name count-js.eclipse.js and put the following content in it:

To run a script, open the EclipseScript launch dialog by using the shortcut Ctrl+4 (or Cmd+4 on Mac). Start writing the name of the script and execute it by pressing return when the script is selected in the list.

The script dialog

Basics of scripting

Scripting is implemented using version 1.7R2 of the rhino javascript engine. For more information of using java from rhino, see the rhino documentation on the subject.

Besides the general java <-> javascript bridging described above, the EclipseScript plug-in injects a global object with the name eclipse exposing a simplified API to interact with the Eclipse development environment. See the below documentation for the eclipse global object.

Besides using the eclipse global object scripts may access eclipse plug-in classes just as normal java code. Plug-in loading is on demand - when first accessing a class unknown to the runtime, the EclipseScript plug-in will resolve a plug-in providing the class and load it.

Example scripts

Accessing and replacing the currently selected text:

SWT may be used directly:

A plug-in such as JDT is loaded just by using a package from the plug-in:

Debug output to the console:

Operations that may take some time should be run in a background job to avoid blocking the user interface thread:

A script to post the current selection to gisthub:

Example using the java AST and the eclipse markers API:

Finally an example using the java AST to wrap method bodies in timing statements, adding statements to void myMethod() { ... } resulting in void myMethod() { long _startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); try { ... } finally { long _stopTime = System.currentTimeMillis() - _startTime; System.out.println("Time executing MyClass#myMethod: " + _passedTime) }:

The eclipse global object

The eclipse object is a global object injected by the EclipseScript plug-in and provides a simplified API to interact with the Eclipse environment compared to accessing the API directly.

eclipse.console.print(String message)
Function to print a message to the console view.
eclipse.console.println(String message)
Function to print a message line to the console view.
eclipse.editors.clipboard
String property. The current clipboard text content or null if none - may both be set and read.
eclipse.editors.document
Read-only property. The currently selected text document or null if none. An instanceof of IDocument which most notable contains the get() method to get the text of the document and the set(String) method to set the text.
eclipse.editors.file
Read-only property. The currently edited file or null if none. An instance of IFile.
eclipse.editors.insert(String textToInsert)
Function to insert text at the current cursor position.
eclipse.editors.replaceSelection(String newText)
Function to replace the current selection.
eclipse.editors.selection
Read-only property. The current text selection or null if no selection. This object is an instance of ITextSelection and contains the text property for the text, as well as the offset, length, startLine and endLine properties. This property is read-only, use eclipse.editors.replaceSelection(String) to change the content of the current selection. Example: eclipse.window.alert('Selection is ' + eclipse.editors.selection.text + ' and starts at line ' + eclipse.editors.selection.startLine);
eclipse.resources.currentProject
Read-only property. The project of the current editor or null if none. An instance of IProject.
eclipse.resources.read(Object input)
Function returning a String resulting from reading the input, which may be an URL or an IFile.
eclipse.resources.filesMatching(String regexp, IResource startingPoint)
Function returning an array of IFile:s matching the regular expression and which are children of the starting point. Note that both IProject:s are IResource:s, so eclipse.resources.scriptProject and eclipse.resources.currentProject are valid starting points. Use eclipse.resources.workspace.root as starting point to examine the whole workspace.
eclipse.resources.scriptProject
Read-only property. The project which the currently executing script is a part of. An instance of IProject.
eclipse.resources.workspace
Read-only property. The current eclipse workspace. An instance of IWorkspace.
eclipse.runtime.die(String message)
Function to exit the execution of the currently running script while providing a message shown to the user. An example for scripts operating on a selection would be if (eclipse.editor.selection == null) die('Nothing is selected').
eclipse.runtime.exit()
Function to exit the execution of the currently running script.
eclipse.runtime.schedule(IJobRunnable runnable)
Function to run a task in a background, non-ui thread. See the IJobRunnable class documentation for more info, though the example given previously should cover many use cases.
eclipse.window.alert(String message)
The normal javascript alert function as available in browsers.
eclipse.window.confirm(String question)
The normal javascript confirm function as available in browsers.
eclipse.window.open(String url)
The normal javascript open function to open a browser.
eclipse.window.prompt(String message, String initialValue = "")
The normal javascript prompt function as available in browsers.
eclipse.xml.parse(Object input)
Parse the input into a org.w3c.dom.Document object.

Source code

Source code is available at http://github.com/fornwall/eclipsescript/.

Feedback

Comments, ideas and bug reports can be filed at the issue tracker.