tracing_logging_in_eclipse.adoc

Tracing and logging in Eclipse

When using eclipse the main place to look for logging is in the workspace log file located at <workspace>/.metadata/.log.

How to gather Eclipse logs and system configuration details

To gather logs and system configuration details is to go to:

Help > Report Problem

This will open up a dialog where you can put in a name and description.

When you press Finish, a .zip file will be created that you share with others (eg., on a JIRA or Bugzilla)

How to enable tracing in Eclipse

Eclipse comes with a tracing mechanism to allow various messages to be displayed in the console’s output based on what tracing flags you pass in. This does require some knowledge of what tracing flags individual plugins expose, and you can usually discover this by browsing through the plugin’s source code to see what they expose.

To enable tracing, two things are required:

• A .options file must live in your eclipse install directory

• You must run your eclipse with the -debug flag.

An example of a .options file, for org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.server.core would look something like:

org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/debug=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/config=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/info=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/warning=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/severe=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/finer=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/finest=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/resources=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/extension_point=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/listeners=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/runtime_target=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/performance=true
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/publishing=true

Each plugin can declare its own trace keys specific to their needs. To discover what trace options are available for a given plugin, you can look for a file named 'Trace.java' or similar. For example, in the jbosstools-server repository, you may look at jbosstools-server/as/plugins/org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.core/jbosscore/org/jboss/ide/eclipse/as/core/Trace.java

See more examples in https://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_How_do_I_use_the_platform_debug_tracing_facility