PDE Target Platform - Avoid Duplicate Bundles [OSX]

An important part while developing OSGI - Enterprise - Applications is the correct use of PDE Target Platforms. My current ERP project uses:

• Eclipse SDK
  
• Eclipse Equinox SDK
  
• Eclipse Riena
  
• ....
  

While creating your Target Platform you'll notice that some downloads contain the same bundles, per ex. downloading Eclipse Platform SDK and Equinox SDK.  

You should know that there are some problems with Target Platforms using duplicates at different locations. Bugzilla 209915, 233096. So its a good idea to avoid duplicates.

If you have installed Apples XCode Tools for OSX, then you can use the application FileMerge:

Whats our goal ? We need all bundles from Equinox SDK not contained in Eclipse Platform SDK.  We choose the following directory locations:

LEFT: plugins folder from Platform SDK

RIGHT: plugins folder from Equinox SDK

MERGE: target plugins folder to get only those Equinox Plug-Ins not already contained in Platform SDK.

Click COMPARE:

EXCLUDE: Identical + Changed Left

EDIT Menu: Select ALL

MERGE - USE RIGHT

Now we can add the merged folder as location to our Target Platform.

 blog in german