Platform.getOS() on FreeBSD

[Rick C. Petty]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 07:47:50PM +0200, Boris Hollas wrote:
> 
> (see http://ocaml.eclipse.free.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=216).
> 
> Now everything seems to work.
> 
> My questions:
> - Does Platform.OS_FREEBSD return Platform.getOS() only in the Eclipse  
> version created by the FreeBSD-Eclipse team
>   or is this built into Eclipse by default?

I'll assume you mean:  Does Platform.getOS() return Platform.OS_FREEBSD
in which case I suspect so.

> - If the former is true, is os.equals(Platform.OS_FREEBSD) portable code  
> or will it produce a compiler error on non-FreeBSD systems?

Probably not, since FreeBSD's port patches
/org.eclipse.core.runtime/src/org/eclipse/core/runtime/Platform.java
to add OS_FREEBSD.

> - Do the Eclipse developers know about the problem?

Probably not.  We should try to push our patches upstream, but no one seems
to have time to do so.

> - What should I suggest to the OcaIDE developers to ensure portability of  
> the plugin's code?

Use reflection-- check if the field Platform.OS_FREEBSD exists, *or* scan
through what Platform.knownOSValues() returns for the string "freebsd".

-- Rick C. Petty