[equinox-dev] Extension Point Registry

[Brian Bauman <baumanbr@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In 3.4, PDE wants to utilize the Runtime's
Extension Point Registry since it has been highly optimized.  I have
been going through and doing some initial work in this area.  

I am starting to run into some problems,
which I hope are either not important or that there are work arounds.

First, I cannot tell from RegistryStrategy.onStart()
if the registry has been populated from a cache using IExtensionRegistry.
 The function "filledFromCache" exists in ExtensionRegistry,
but I have to cast to the internal class to get this information.  Since
I am modeling my strategy after the RegistryStrategyOSGi (loading plug-ins
from the target platform instead of the runtime), this was one API I am
not sure is necessary.  If loading the registry after it was loaded
from the cache will hurt performance, this is something I would like to
see how we might access this information without casting.

Second, is there any way to save the
registry without calling IExtensionRegistry.stop()?  This would be
handy since we would like to not have to reparse everything if the workspace
crashes.

Can I clear the contents of an IExtensionRegistry?
 When the user changes their platform, it would be handy if we could
reuse the IExtensionRegistry with the data from the new target, instead
of creating a new Object.

I appreciate any ideas or comments.
 Thanks!

Brian Bauman
     IBM Software Group - Austin, TX
     Eclipse Committer
     baumanbr@xxxxxxxxxx
     (512) 838 -2938 (T/L 678-2938)