Product launch and feature dependencies

Question

I'm reorganizing my e4-application to use feature-based product definitions. I encountered the following behavior:
Setting:
Let P be a feature-based product definition containing a feature F.
F contains just one plugin, say A. A imports a package, that is provided by another plugin B of the target platform. Hence, F contains B as a dependency (using <requires><import plugin> in feature.xml).
Behaviour:
If P is launched or exported, the plugin B is neither included in launch configuration nor in export, clearly yielding a
Could not resolve module: A
Unresolved requirement: Import-Package: B;
Sure, this can be solved by adding B to F directly (and not as dependency).
My question is:
Did I get something wrong?
What is the purpose of the Dependency configuration of a feature?
Do I have to include all required plug-ins into the feature by hand?
Is there an automated way to do this (like "Add required" for plugin-based products)?
Regards, Ragnar

Answer 1

Hi Ragnar
no, I do not think you are doing something wrong.
A large product might consist of multiple features. So if B is a library you are using it might make sense to put it in a separate library feature you can add to your product definition. Or you might want to have it in the same feature as A. It depends on what you want to accomplish. We use features to group bundles that are shared by multiple products (like libraries and core components).
Afaik the editor for feature.xml does not offer any help to add dependencies automatically. We manage our features manualy. As soon as a product is stable it usualy isn't a lot of work. Before that, when the dependencies still change a lot, I like to use plugin based product configuration and switch to features later. You could check if another build technology like Tycho or Bndtools works better for you, but I don't know. You should be wary of "Add required" anyway, because it might add something you do not want to have (i.e. all fragments in your target get added as soon as their host is present which is not always what you want).
Cheers
Christoph