Adding Artifacts from URLs (or single artifacts from a P2 updatesite)

GENERAL
1

I have a couple of Artifacts I need to use, that are hidden in a very large p2 repository. I don’t want to use the P2Repo we have, because it would take ages till it downloaded and index everything.

Thus I ask myself, if we have any kind of repository, that I can somehow hand a couple of URLs, that point directly to the necessary files, so it only downloads and indexes what’s needed.

2

Okay, to Answer my own question:

The P2Repository supports reading a .target file. Curating a target definition with the given target file editor can be quite messy, because it usually works with P2 Features that in most cases come with a lot of garbage that no one needs or wants.

One can however do it manually and point to separate bundles instead of feature. An example could look like this:

<target name="targetPlatform">
	<locations>
		<location includeAllPlatforms="false" includeConfigurePhase="true" includeMode="planner" includeSource="true" type="InstallableUnit">
			<repository location="http://download.eclipse.org/releases/2020-06"/>
			<unit id="org.eclipse.draw2d" version="3.10.100.201606061308"/>
		</location>
	</locations>
</target>

Finding the right update site and version usually requires a lot of google use, but will produce results in most cases. Please not that an exact version is required, as in comparison to eclipse, bnd does not support 0.0.0 versions.

3

See also the idea in this issue: Repository bundle filter implementation · Issue #3522 · bndtools/bnd (github.com)