How can I test my Ghidra code modifications and my Ghidra FileSystem extension together?

[hippietrail]

I've used GhidraDev to make a FileSystem for an old archive format and I thought I'd take a crack at implementing a new Ghidra feature I discussed here recently to let the FileSystem Browser get info about what icon to use for a file from the FileSystem instead of from the filename extension.

I got the basics of it working in my Ghidra fork so the next step is to hook the two up. But try as I might I can't figure out how to bring my FileSystem code into my Ghidra fork in a way that works.

I've tried:

• Copying the FileSystem code into the directory that has all the code for the standard FileSystems.
• Renaming the pacage.
• Quitting and restarting Eclipse.
• Refreshing the packages in Eclipse.
• Running gradle prepdev eclipse buildNatives again on the commandline.
• Running gradle buildGhidra again on the commandline.
• Using the GhidraDev extension export feature on the Eclipse workspace I used for making my extensions and then the GhidraDev extension import on the new Eclipse workspace I'm using to modify my fork of Ghidra.

I'm out of ideas.
(I am new to the Java, Eclipse, Gradle ecosystem so there's a ton I don't know)

[ryanmkurtz]

There's an important concept that i'd like to clarify before we continue...it might solve some problems out of the gate.

When you develop in Ghidra, you have 2 choices, and they don't work together:

1. Use the GhidraDev Eclipse plugin to develop an external extension that lives outside of the Ghidra installation. GhidraDev points at a Ghidra pre-built installation, never a Ghidra source repository. There is no need to ever build Ghidra in this scenario, and really no need for any gradle commands.
2. Clone the git repo and develop Ghidra directly in Eclipse. This environment does not use the GhidraDev Eclipse plugin at all. Instead, it relies on gradle tasks like prepdev and 'eclipse` to setup the Eclipse environment.

Which one of these development paths have you taken?

[hippietrail]

Here's the whole screen. A bit less than half the package explorer's entries fit in though:

The rest of the package exporer:

[ryanmkurtz]

Looks like something is very wrong. You followed the steps in the README.md? Can you paste in the first java compilation error that Eclipse is reporting?

[hippietrail]

Yes I followed the same steps four times and each time it was fine at first but after I quit Eclipse and later opened up the workspace again these errors showed up. Here's the shell history from the last time:

 1654  mkdir ghidra-repo
 1655  cd ghidra-repo
 1656  git clone --depth=1 https:/hippietrail/ghidra.git
 1657  ls
 1658  cd ghidra
 1659  git pull
 1660  git fetch
 1661  pwd
 1662  gradle -I gradle/support/fetchDependencies.gradle
 1663  export PATH=$PATH:/Users/hippietrail/Downloads/gradle-8.10.2/bin
 1664  gradle -I gradle/support/fetchDependencies.gradle
 1665  gradle buildGhidra
 1666  gradle prepdev eclipse buildNatives
 1667  open -n ~/eclipse/java-2024-09/Eclipse.app

Followed by the import steps from inside Eclipse.

This is the error at the top of the list:

Description	Resource	Path	Location	Type
Project '_Debugger Integration Test' is missing required Java project: '68000'	_Debugger Integration Test		Build path	Build Path Problem

The first couple of dozen are like that and the next couple of dozen are like this:

Description	Resource	Path	Location	Type
Project '_GhidraDocs' is missing required Java project: 'Base'	_GhidraDocs		Build path	Build Path Problem

[ryanmkurtz]

Can you try this:

1. Select all in the Package Explorer, right click, and then click delete. Don't check the checkbox on the dialog.
2. Run gradle cleanEclipse eclipse
3. File -> Import -> General -> Existing Projects into Workspace
4. Root should be the top of your git repo
5. Make sure only the 1st and 4th Options are checked
6. Finish

[astrelsky]

export PATH=$PATH:/Users/hippietrail/Downloads/gradle-8.10.2/bin

This seems suspicious to me. Is there a different version of gradle also in your path which caused you to do this? I don't know if setting this path will actually stick when eclipse is open.

[ryanmkurtz]

I think it's fine. Eclipse, as we use it, doesn't use gradle. My PATH has often looked like that if I was just doing a quick setup.

[hippietrail]

I'm not really a *nix guy so always have to check which auto-run script to put stuff like $PATH changes in and since gradle wasn't already in my path I just installed the latest version and did it "inline" for this project before knowing whether it was all going to work or not.

ryanmkurtz's fix here worked a charm. My custom filesystem is now included, all the errors went away, and I was able to get a working prototype of my idea for FileSystems to pass filetype info to the filesystem browser so it can display the right icons instead of relying on file extensions.

Quitting Eclipse and starting it again doesn't bring up all those errors again. I might see if this fix works on my external HD repos and see if I can get those errors coming up on a new repo too to report as a bug if need be.

Thanks for your patience!

[hippietrail]

Just a note to say that this fix also worked on both of my old repos on external drives and I can't get the errors to come back by quitting Eclipse and restarting or by switching workspaces. (There are other problems on the FAT drive due to macOS creating files beginning with ._ and ending with .java etc, but that's a separate issue.)

I tried to reproduce the errors in a new repo but cannot. I must've done something the same the first four times I set it up that I'm not doing now and don't remember.