Getting Started With VoltDB

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Chapter 5. Using VoltDB with Eclipse

As you can see from the Hello World tutorial and the sample applications distributed with VoltDB, there are several components to a VoltDB application. Managing the source files, their location, and the details of how to build them effectively is not a trivial exercise. This is why VoltDB provides a script to help generate a template application, including the appropriate Ant build file to manage these details for you.

In addition to managing the build process, it is often helpful to use an integrated development environment (IDE) to manage the editing of the source files as well. IDEs provide, as the name implies, a complete environment to assist in software development, including "smart" editors that validate code, resolve errors, and execute test builds through a simplified interface.

Eclipse is one of the most common Java IDEs available. (Eclipse supports many other programming languages as well, so is useful beyond just its application to VoltDB.) The following sections explain how to set up a new VoltDB project within Eclipse. These sections are not intended as a tutorial in Eclipse; they assume you are already familiar with software programming practices, the Java programming language, and Eclipse (or a similar IDE).

There are other Java IDEs available, such as NetBeans, which operate in much the same way as Eclipse. The choice of which IDE to use is up to you, the user. But for the purpose of this guide, we will describe how to set up Eclipse for use with VoltDB and leave the set up of other IDEs as an exercise for those readers who prefer the alternatives.

5.1. Installing Eclipse

Eclipse is available as an installation package for most Linux-based platforms. So you can often use your operating system package manager (such as Synaptic) to install Eclipse. If not, you can find installation kits and instructions on the Eclipse web site: http://www.eclipse.org/.

Eclipse 3.0 and later comes bundled with Ant, which you need to manage the build process for your application. So you do not need to install Ant separately. However, it is a good idea to make sure Eclipse is using the correct version of the Java runtime environment (JRE). Choose Preferences... from the Window menu and look under Java > installed JREs to see which JRE Eclipse is using. Eclipse must be using Java 1.6 or later to operate properly for VoltDB applications,

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