Make the usage of RepositoryPlugin <-> Repository more flexible in bnd (run)s

[laeubi]

One thing I noticed quite often now is that when using Bndruns programmatically (not sure if the same problem might occur elsewhere) to perform a resolve operation one sometimes get very strange could not resolve <<INITIAL>>... errors.

After some digging one finds that this is because there are two kind of "repositories":

1. "bnd" repositories (like FileRepo) that are implemented as RepositoryPlugin and can be used to resolve e.g. bundle classpath and alike
2. "osgi" repository, that is required to perform a resolve operation (e.g. FileSetRepository) that are usually also RepositoryPlugins

One example is biz.aQute.resolve.BndrunResolveContext.getAllRepos() where it only will get all that are OSGi Repository but this will of course not cover "plain" ones. This is very confusing because the usual bnd operations work, but the resolve suddenly fails.

I could think of two ways to resolve this:

1. Make bndrun / maybe others "smarter" ...
2. Have some kind of way to define a "converter" that is when I call aQute.bnd.service.Registry.getPlugins(Repository.class) automatically wraps RepositoryPlugins that do not implement that interface in a Repository thats uses the repository plugin as a backend.

One example is the "implicit" repository CachedFileRepo that come with each Workspace by default, one can use that for all operations in bnd except for resolve... for this purpose one has to explicitly add for example biz.aQute.tester.junit-platform even though it is part of the implict repository.

[chrisrueger]

I stumbled on the two kinds of repositories too when I worked on the tags. But I didn't pay it much attention. But maybe somebody could explain the intention / reasoning behind this.

One example is the "implicit" repository CachedFileRepo that come with each Workspace by default, one can use that for all operations in bnd except for resolve

1. Make bndrun / maybe others "smarter" ...

I just found this:

bnd/biz.aQute.bnd.maven/src/aQute/bnd/maven/lib/resolve/BndrunContainer.java

Line 216 in 6cb7d88

public boolean injectImplicitRepository(Run run) throws Exception {

Do you mean by "making smarter" to do something similar?

[laeubi]

With the embedded repo I mean this one here:

bnd/biz.aQute.bndlib/src/aQute/bnd/build/Workspace.java

Line 640 in 6cb7d88

class CachedFileRepo extends FileRepo {

it is a "normal" repo (that can lookup things by name and list all versions) but not an OSGi repo (that can resolve capabilities).

With "smarter" I mean this here biz.aQute.resolve.BndrunResolveContext.getAllRepos() it only uses Repository.class but not RepositoryPlugin.class (what needs to be wrapped so support identity lookups) types

[chrisrueger]

but not RepositoryPlugin.class (what needs to be wrapped so support identity lookups) types

@laeubi
Have you seen any other place in the code which does this kind of "wrapping"? I tried having a look but I am getting a bit lost between all those BaseRepository, AbstractIndexedRepo, BridgeRepository etc.

[pkriens]

Its history. Originally bnd had repositoryplugin but then OSGi standardized a Repository. I made the BridgeRepository to bridg these worlds so it was easy for an old plugin to provide the OSGi Repository. BaseRepository and AbstractIndexedRepo were made by Neil who did most of the work on the resolving model.