MicroEJ Module Manager

Introduction

Modern electronic device design involves many parts and teams to collaborate to finally obtain a product to be sold on its market. MicroEJ encourages modular design which involves various stake holders: hardware engineers, UX designers, graphic designers, drivers/BSP engineers, software engineers, etc.

Modular design is a design technique that emphasizes separating the functionality of an application into independent, interchangeable modules. Each module contains everything necessary to execute only one aspect of the desired functionality. In order to have team members collaborate internally within their team and with other teams, MicroEJ provides a powerful modular design concept, with smart module dependencies, controlled by the MicroEJ Module Manager (MMM). MMM frees engineers from the difficult task of computing module dependencies. Engineers specify the bare minimum description of the module requirements.

The following schema introduces the main concepts detailed in this chapter.

MMM Overview

MMM is based on the following tools:

• Apache Ivy (http://ant.apache.org/ivy) for dependencies resolution and module publication;
• Apache EasyAnt (https://ant.apache.org/easyant/history/trunk/reference.html) for module build from source code.

Specification

MMM provides a non ambiguous semantic for dependencies resolution. Please consult the MMM specification available on https://developer.microej.com/packages/documentation/TLT-0831-SPE-MicroEJModuleManager-2.0-E.pdf.

Module Project Skeleton

In MicroEJ SDK, a new MicroEJ module project is created as following:

• Select File > New > Project…,
• Select MicroEJ > MicroEJ Module Project [1],
• Fill the module information (project name, module organization, name and revision),
• Select one of the suggested skeletons depending on the desired module nature,
• Click on Finish.

The project is created and a set of files and directories are generated from the selected skeleton.

Note

When an empty Eclipse project already exists or when the skeleton has to be created within an existing directory, the MicroEJ module is created as following:

• In the Package Explorer, click on the parent project or directory,
• Select File > New > Other…,
• Select EasyAnt > EasyAnt Skeleton.

Module Description File

A module description file is an Ivy configuration file named module.ivy, located at the root of each MicroEJ module project. It describes the module nature (also called build type) and dependencies to other modules.

<ivy-module version="2.0" xmlns:ea="http://www.easyant.org" xmlns:m="http://ant.apache.org/ivy/extra"
                          xmlns:ej="https://developer.microej.com" ej:version="2.0.0">
    <info organisation="[organisation]" module="[name]" status="integration" revision="[version]">
        <ea:build organisation="com.is2t.easyant.buildtypes" module="[buildtype_name]" revision="[buildtype_version]">
            <ea:property name="[buildoption_name]" value="[buildoption_value]"/>
        </ea:build>
    </info>

    <configurations defaultconfmapping="default->default;provided->provided">
        <conf name="default" visibility="public"/>
        <conf name="provided" visibility="public"/>
        <conf name="documentation" visibility="public"/>
        <conf name="source" visibility="public"/>
        <conf name="dist" visibility="public"/>
        <conf name="test" visibility="private"/>
    </configurations>

    <publications>
    </publications>

    <dependencies>
      <dependency org="[dep_organisation]" name="[dep_name]" rev="[dep_version]"/>
    </dependencies>
</ivy-module>

Enable MMM Semantic

The MMM semantic is enabled in a module by adding the MicroEJ XML namespace and the ej:version attribute in the ivy-module node:

<ivy-module xmlns:ej="https://developer.microej.com" ej:version="2.0.0">

Note

Multiple namespaces can be declared in the ivy-module node.

MMM semantic is enabled in the module created with the Module Project Skeleton.

Module Dependencies

Module dependencies are added to the dependencies node as follow:

<dependencies>
  <dependency org="[dep_organisation]" name="[dep_name]" rev="[dep_version]"/>
</dependencies>

When no matching rule is specified, the default matching rule is compatible.

Dependency Matching Rule

The following matching rules are specified by MMM:

Name	Range Notation	Semantic
compatible	[M.m.p-RC, (M+1).0.0-RC[	Equal or up to next major version. Default if not set.
equivalent	[M.m.p-RC, M.(m+1).0-RC [	Equal or up to next minor version
greaterOrEqual	[M.m.p-RC, ∞[	Equal or greater versions
perfect	[M.m.p-RC, M.m.(p+1)-RC[	Exact match (strong dependency)

Set the matching rule of a given dependency with ej:match="matching rule". For example:

<dependency org="[dep_organisation]" name="[dep_name]" rev="[dep_version]" ej:match="perfect" />

Dependency Visibility

• A dependency declared public is transitively resolved by upper modules. The default when not set.

• A dependency declared private is only used by the module itself, typically for:

  • Bundling the content into the module
  • Testing the module

The visibility is set by the configurations declared in the configurations node. For example:

<configurations defaultconfmapping="default->default;provided->provided">
    <conf name="[conf_name]" visibility="private"/>
</configurations>

The configuration of a dependency is specified by setting the conf attribute, for example:

<dependency org="[dep_organisation]" name="[dep_name]" rev="[dep_version]" conf="[conf_name]->*" />

Automatic Update Before Resolution

The Easyant plugin ivy-update can be used to automatically update the version (attribute rev) of every module dependencies declared.

<info organisation="[organisation]" module="[name]" status="integration" revision="[version]">
    <ea:plugin org="com.is2t.easyant.plugins" name="ivy-update" revision="1.+" />
</info>

When the plugin is enabled, for each module dependency, MMM will check the version declared in the module file and update it to the highest version available which satisfies the matching rule of the dependency.

Build Options

MMM build options can be set with:

<ea:property name="[buildoption_name]" value="[buildoption_value]"/>

The following build options are globally available:

Build Options

Property Name	Description	Default Value
target	Path of the build directory target~.	${basedir}/target~

Refer to the documentation of Module Natures for specific build options.

MicroEJ Module Manager Configuration

By default, when starting an empty workspace, MicroEJ SDK is configured to import dependencies from MicroEJ Central Repository and to publish built modules to a local directory. The repository configuration is stored in a settings file (ivysettings.xml), and the default one is located at $USER_HOME\.microej\microej-ivysettings-[VERSION].xml

Preferences Page

The MMM preferences page in the MicroEJ SDK is available at Window > Preferences > MicroEJ > Module Manager [1].

MMM Preferences Page

This page allows to configure the following elements:

1. Settings File: the file describing how to connect module repositories. See the settings file section.

2. Options: files declaring MMM options. See the Options section.

3. Use Module repository as Build repository: the settings file for connecting the build repository in place of the one bundled in MicroEJ SDK. This option shall not be enabled by default and is reserved for advanced configuration.

4. Build repository Settings File: the settings file for connecting the build repository in place of the one bundled in MicroEJ SDK. This option is automatically initialized the first time MicroEJ SDK is launched. It shall not be modified by default and is reserved for advanced configuration.

5. Set verbose mode: to enable advanced debug traces when building a module.

6. Runtime JRE: the Java Runtime Environment that executes the build process.

7. Max build history size: the maximum number of previous builds available in Build Module shortcut list:

   

Settings File

The settings file is an XML file that describes how MMM connects local or online module repositories. The file format is described in Apache Ivy documentation.

To configure MMM to a custom settings file (usually from an offline repository):

1. Set Settings file to a custom ivysettings.xml settings file [1],
2. Click on Apply and Close button

If the workspace is not empty, it is recommended to trigger a full resolution and rebuild all the projects using this new repository configuration:

1. Clean caches

   • In the Package Explorer, right-click on a project;
   • Select Ivy > Clean all caches.

2. Resolve projects using the new repository

   To resolve all the workspace projects, click on the Resolve All button in the toolbar:

   

   To only resolve a subset of the workspace projects:

   • In the Package Explorer, select the desired projects,
   • Right-click on a project and select Ivy > Clean all caches.

3. Trigger Add-On Library processors for automatically generated source code

   • Select Project > Clean…,
   • Select Clean all projects,
   • Click on Clean button.

Options

Options can be used to parameterize a module description file or a settings file. Options are declared as key/value pairs in a standard Java properties file, and are expanded using the ${my_property} notation.

A typical usage in a settings file is for extracting repository server credentials, such as HTTP Basic access authentication:

1. Declare options in a properties file

   

2. Register this property file to MMM options

3. Use this option in a settings file

   

A typical usage in a module description file is for factorizing dependency versions across multiple modules projects:

1. Declare an option in a properties file

   

2. Register this property file to MMM options

   

3. Use this option in a module description file

   

Module Build

In MicroEJ SDK, the build of a MicroEJ module project can be started as following:

• In the Package Explorer, right-click on the project,
• Select Build Module.

Module Build

The build of a module can take time depending on

• the module nature to build,
• the number and the size of module dependencies to download,
• the repository connection bandwidth, …

The module build logs are redirected to the integrated console.

Alternatively, the build of a MicroEJ module project can be started from the build history:

Module Build History

Build Kit

The Module Manager Build Kit is a consistent set of tools, scripts, configuration and artifacts required for building modules in command-line mode. Starting from MicroEJ SDK 5.4.0, it also contains a Command Line Interface (CLI). The Build Kit allows to work in headless mode (e.g. in a terminal) and to build your modules using a Continuous Integration tool.

The Build Kit is bundled with MicroEJ SDK and can be exported using the following steps: [2]

• Select File > Export > MicroEJ > Module Manager Build Kit,
• Choose an empty Target directory,
• Click on the Finish button.

Once the Build Kit is fully exported, the directory content shall look like:

/
├─ bin
│  ├─ mmm
│  └─ mmm.bat
├─ conf
├─ lib
├─ microej-build-repository
│  ├─ ant-contrib
│  ├─ com
│  ├─ ...
│  └─ ivysettings.xml
├─ microej-module-repository
│  └─ ivysettings.xml
└─ release.properties

• Add the bin directory of the Build Kit directory to the PATH environment variable of your machine.
• Make sure the JAVA_HOME environment variable is set and points to a JRE/JDK installation or that java executable is in the PATH environment variable (Java 8 is required)
• Confirm that the installation works fine by executing the command mmm --version. The result should display the MMM CLI version.

The mmm tool can run on any supported Operating Systems:

• on Windows, either in the command prompt using the Windows batch script mmm.bat or in MinGW environments such as Git BASH using the bash script mmm.
• on Mac OS X and Linux distributions using the bash script mmm.

The build repository (microej-build-repository directory) contains scripts and tools for building modules. It is specific to a MicroEJ SDK version and shall not be modified by default.

The module repository (microej-module-repository directory) contains a default Settings File for importing modules from MicroEJ Central Repository and this local repository (modules that are locally built will be published to this directory). You can override with custom settings or by extracting an offline repository.

To go further with headless builds, please consult Tool-CommandLineBuild for command line builds, and this tutorial to setup MicroEJ modules build in continuous integration environments).

[1]	(1, 2, 3) If using MicroEJ SDK versions lower than 5.2.0, please refer to the following section.

[2]	If using MicroEJ SDK versions lower than 5.4.0, please refer to the following section.

Command Line Interface

Starting from version 5.4.0, MicroEJ SDK provides a Command Line Interface (CLI). Please refer to the Build Kit section for installation details.

The following operations are supported by the MMM CLI:

• creating a module project
• cleaning a module project
• building a module project
• running a MicroEJ Application project on the Simulator
• publishing a module in a module repository

Usage

In order to use the MMM CLI for your project:

• go to the root directory of your project

• run the following command

  mmm [OPTION]... [COMMAND]
  

where COMMAND is the command to execute (for example mmm build). The available commands are:

• help: display help information about the specified command
• init: create a new project
• clean: clean the project
• build: build the project
• publish: build the project and publish the module
• run: run the MicroEJ Application project on the Simulator

The available options are:

• --help (-h) : show the help message and exit
• --version (-V) : print version information and exit
• --build-repository-settings-file (-b) : path of the Ivy settings file for build scripts and tools. Defaults to ${CLI_HOME}/microej-build-repository/ivysettings.xml.
• --repository-settings-file (-r) : path of the Ivy settings file for modules. Defaults to ${CLI_HOME}/microej-module-repository/ivysettings.xml.
• --ivy-file (-f) : path of the project’s Ivy file. Defaults to ./module.ivy.
• --verbose (-v) : verbose mode. Disabled by default. Add this option to enable verbose mode.
• -Dxxx=yyy : any additional option passed as system properties.

When no command is specified, MMM CLI executes Easyant with custom targets using the --targets (-t) option (defaults to clean,package).

Shared configuration

In order to share configuration across several projects, these parameters can be defined in the file ${user.home}/.microej/.mmmconfig. This file uses the TOML format. Parameters names are the same than the ones passed as system properties, except the character _ is used as a separator instead of -. The parameters defined in the [options] section are passed as system properties. Here is an example:

build_repository_settings_file = "/home/johndoe/ivy-configuration/ivysettings.xml"
module_repository_settings_file = "/home/johndoe/ivy-configuration/ivysettings.xml"
ivy_file = "ivy.xml"

[options]
my.first.property = "value1"
my.second.property = "value2"

Warning

• TOML values must be surrounded with double quotes
• Backslash characters (\) must be doubled (for example a Windows path C:\\Users\\johndoe\\ivysettings.xml)

Command line options take precedence over those defined in the configuration file. So if the same option is defined in both locations, the value defined in the command line is used.

Commands

init

The command init creates a new project (executes Easyant with skeleton:generate target). The skeleton and project information must be passed with the following system properties:

• skeleton.org: organisation of the skeleton module. Defaults to com.is2t.easyant.skeletons.
• skeleton.module: name of the skeleton module. Mandatory, defaults to microej-javalib.
• skeleton.rev: revision of the skeleton module. Mandatory, defaults to + (meaning the latest released version).
• project.org: organisation of the project module. Mandatory, defaults to com.mycompany.
• project.module: name of the project module. Mandatory, defaults to myproject.
• project.rev: revision of the project module. Defaults to 0.1.0.
• skeleton.target.dir: relative path of the project directory (created if it does not exist). Mandatory, defaults to the current directory.

For example

mmm init -Dskeleton.org=com.is2t.easyant.skeletons -Dskeleton.module=microej-javalib -Dskeleton.rev=4.2.8 -Dproject.org=com.mycompany -Dproject.module=myproject -Dproject.rev=1.0.0 -Dskeleton.target.dir=myproject

If one of these properties is missing, it will be asked in interactive mode:

$ mmm init -Dskeleton.org=com.is2t.easyant.skeletons -Dskeleton.module=microej-javalib -Dskeleton.rev=4.2.8 -Dproject.org=com.mycompany -Dproject.module=myproject -Dproject.rev=1.0.0

...

-skeleton:check-generate:
   [input] skipping input as property skeleton.org has already been set.
   [input] skipping input as property skeleton.module has already been set.
   [input] skipping input as property skeleton.rev has already been set.
   [input] The path where the skeleton project will be unzipped [/home/tdelhomenie/microej/working/skeleton]

To force the non-interactive mode, the property skeleton.interactive.mode must be set to false. In non-interactive mode the default values are used for missing non-mandatory properties, and the creation fails if mandatory properties are missing.

$ mmm init -Dskeleton.org=com.is2t.easyant.skeletons -Dskeleton.module=microej-javalib -Dskeleton.rev=4.2.8 -Dproject.org=com.mycompany -Dskeleton.target.dir=myproject -Dskeleton.interactive.mode=false

...

* Problem Report:

expected property 'project.module': Module name of YOUR project

clean

The command clean cleans the project (executes Easyant with clean target). For example

mmm clean

cleans the project.

build

The command build builds the project (executes Easyant with clean,package targets). For example

mmm build -f ivy.xml -v

builds the project with the Ivy file ivy.xml and in verbose mode.

publish

The command publish builds the project and publishes the module. This command accepts the publication target as a parameter, amongst these values:

• local (default value) : executes the clean,publish-local Easyant target, which publishes the project with the resolver referenced by the property local.resolver in the Settings File.
• shared : executes the clean,publish-shared Easyant target, which publishes the project with the resolver referenced by the property shared.resolver in the Settings File.
• release : executes the clean,release Easyant target, which publishes the project with the resolver referenced by the property release.resolver the Settings File.

For example

mmm publish local

builds the project and publishes the module using the local resolver.

run

The command run runs the application on the Simulator (executes Easyant with compile,simulator:run targets). It has the following requirements:

• to run on the Simulator, the project must be configured with one of the following Module Natures:

  • Sandboxed Application
  • Standalone Application
  • Add-On Library

• the property application.main.class must be set to the Fully Qualified Name of the application main class (for example com.mycompany.Main)

• a MicroEJ Platform must be provided (see :ref`module_natures_platform_selection` section)

• Application Options must be defined using properties file under in the build directory (see Using a Properties File section)

• the module must have been built once before running the Simulator. So the mmm build command must be executed before running the Simulator the first time or after a project clean (mmm clean command).

  Note

  The next times, it is not required to rebuild the module if source code files have been modified. The content of src/main/java and src/main/resources folders are automatically compiled by mmm run command before running the Simulator.

For example

mmm run -D"platform-loader.target.platform.file"="/path/to/the/platform.zip"

runs the application on the given platform.

The Simulator can be launched in debug mode by setting the property execution.mode of the application file build/commons.properties to debug:

execution.mode=debug

The debug port can be defined with the property debug.port. Go to Simulator Debug options section for more details.

help

The command help displays the help for a command. For example

mmm help run

displays the help of the command run.

Troubleshooting

Run fails with ``Target “simulator:run” does not exist``

If the following message appears when executing the run command:

* Problem Report:

Target "simulator:run" does not exist in the project "my-app".

it means that the command run is not supported by the build type declared by your module project. Make sure it is one of the following ones:

• build-application, with version 7.1.0 or higher
• build-microej-javalib, with version 4.2.0 or higher
• build-firmware-singleapp, with version 1.3.0 or higher

Former MicroEJ SDK Versions (lower than 5.2.0)

This section describes MMM configuration elements for MicroEJ SDK versions lower than 5.2.0.

New MicroEJ Module Project

The New MicroEJ Module Project wizard is available at File > New > Project…, EasyAnt > EasyAnt Project.

Preferences Pages

MMM Preferences Pages are located in two dedicated pages. The following pictures show the options mapping using the same options numbers declared in Preferences Page.

Ivy Preferences Page

The Ivy Preferences Page is available at Window > Preferences > Ivy > Settings.

Easyant Preferences Page

The Easyant Preferences Page is available at Window > Preferences > EasyAnt4Eclipse.

Build Kit

• Create an empty directory (e.g. mmm_sdk_[version]_build_kit),
• Locate your SDK installation plugins directory (by default, C:\Program Files\MicroEJ\MicroEJ SDK-[version]\rcp\plugins on Windows OS),
• Open the file com.is2t.eclipse.plugin.easyant4e_[version].jar with an archive manager,
• Extract the directory lib to the target directory,
• Open the file com.is2t.eclipse.plugin.easyant4e.offlinerepo_[version].jar with an archive manager,
• Navigate to directory repositories,
• Extract the file named microej-build-repository.zip for MicroEJ SDK 5.x or is2t_repo.zip for MicroEJ SDK 4.1.x to the target directory.

Former MicroEJ SDK Versions (from 5.2.0 to 5.3.x)

Build Kit

The Build Kit is bundled with MicroEJ SDK and can be exported using the following steps:

• Select File > Export > MicroEJ > Module Manager Build Kit,
• Choose an empty Target directory,
• Click on the Finish button.

Once the Build Kit is fully exported, the directory content shall look like: