Introduction to Eclipse Test and performance Tools platform

Before you start

What can you learn in this tutorial? How do I get the maximum benefit from this tutorial?

About this tutorial

This tutorial introduces Eclipse Test and performance Tools Platform (TPTP), step-by-step instructions on how to install Eclipse and TPTP tools, and demonstrates how to analyze a running Java application.

Prerequisite conditions

To benefit from this tutorial, you should have Java software development experience and an understanding of the entire software development lifecycle, including testing and analysis. You should also be familiar with installing software from the command line, and setting up and managing shell and system environment variables, such as Java CLASSPATH. It is also helpful to know about Eclipse and Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT).

Before you begin, you must install several packages on the UNIX®, linux®, Mac OS X, or microsoft®windows® systems. Requires Java Virtual machine (Java MACHINE,JVM), Eclipse platform, eclipse TPTP Runtime, and several software that TPTP relies on. You also need the TPTP Agent Controller, which allows you to start and analyze your application. Here are all the software you need:

Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) V1.4 Software Kit (SDK)

J2SE V1.4 Java Runtime Environment (J2RE)

Eclipse V3.1 SDK

Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) SDK V2.1

XML Schema infoset Model (XSD) SDK V2.1

V1.1.1 of UML2

TPTP Run time

Agent Controller Runtime (for your system version)

Eclipse Update Manager (optional)

System Requirements

If the JVM and Eclipse are not installed on the system, then all software requires at least MB of free disk space. You also need to have enough free physical memory to run the JVM. In general, it is recommended that you use MB or more of free physical memory.

TPTP Introduction

The Java code to write an application or servlet is only the first phase of the process required to deliver a robust product quality program. The code must be tested to verify its operation and correctness. It is also often necessary to analyze the code to eliminate performance bottlenecks and resource waste (especially memory). Code must also be monitored to locate faults, identify usage patterns, look for opportunities for further enhancements and optimizations, and detect intrusion attempts and actual intrusions.

What is Eclipse TPTP?

Although there are many tools for testing, analyzing, and monitoring code, it is rarely possible to set it up as a large toolkit. In addition, such tools are often provided by different vendors, which allows you to spend valuable time and effort learning and mastering many different user interfaces (UIs), compilers, and diagnostics. Both in terms of time and money, proprietary development tools require a lot of investment.

But what if the test tools, parsers, and monitors are open source? And if the tools are extensible, any vendor or developer can create new tools or improve on existing tools, what happens? What if these tools can be well integrated into an existing, popular development environment? I'm afraid this is a daydream, isn't it? No, it's already a reality.

The Eclipse TPTP is a software architecture and several components that extend the Eclipse platform (so far) that provide testing, performance, and monitoring tools on the Eclipse platform. Some Java, C, and C + + developers use TPTP to build unique tools for other developers, and some developers combine the tools provided by TPTP and other features of Eclipse to build and deploy applications for use by users.