Eclipse p2 : Difference between category.xml and site.xml

Question

p2 repository creation ant tasks like eclipse.publish.featuresAndBundles seem to take a site.xml or category.xml file which specifies the category information.

I see that the contents of site.xml and category.xml that eclipse generates are exactly the same right down to the tags.

So what is the difference between the two?

Edit - To be clear :
What additions/subtractions are present in category.xml that differentiate it from a site.xml apart from the filenames?

Delrio

Answer 1

The main difference between the to that the site.xml provides information where the update site and other repo information can be structured, and it is part of the update site, but as of 3.4 it has been replaced with content.xml and artifacts.xml

In the categories is an XML file describing categories, it can be consumed during a p2 build and produces the categories seen in the Help>Install New Software dialog. But again with p2, categories.xml can be replaced with a child repo in a composite repo containing the information you would expect.

Rolfrolfe

but if the contents of category.xml and site.xml right down to the individual tags are same, what is the difference between the two? what additions/subtractions are present in category.xml that differentiate it from a site.xml apart from the filename of course. – Delrio

@Delrio one is used to give information structure to the p2 repository. Other is for the use with eclipse update sites. basically the p2 repo doesn't know that the site.xml exists. either way site.xml has been deprecated. :) – Rolfrolfe

ok, but apart from the filenames are there any changes in content/schema between the two? – Delrio

@Delrio I am not sure. Why does it matter though. They are both important to process they are involved in. – Rolfrolfe

It looks like in 3.4 there was no option (at least through the PDE plugin) to create a category.xml then the "Category Definition" wizard was added to PDE in 3.5. – Sunken