How to get the selected node in the package explorer from an Eclipse plugin

Question

I'm writing an Eclipse command plugin and want to retrieve the currently selected node in the package explorer view. I want to be able to get the absolute filepath, where the selected node resides on the filesystem (i.e. c:\eclipse\test.html), from the returned result.

How do I do this ?

Translucid

Answer 1

The first step is to get a selection service, e.g. from any view or editor like this:

ISelectionService service = getSite().getWorkbenchWindow()
            .getSelectionService();

Or, as VonC wrote, you could get it via the PlatformUI, if you are neither in a view or an editor.

Then, get the selection for the Package Explorer and cast it to an IStructuredSelection:

IStructuredSelection structured = (IStructuredSelection) service
            .getSelection("org.eclipse.jdt.ui.PackageExplorer");

From that, you can get your selected IFile:

IFile file = (IFile) structured.getFirstElement();

Now to get the full path, you will have to get the location for the IFile:

IPath path = file.getLocation();

Which you then can finally use to get the real full path to your file (among other things):

System.out.println(path.toPortableString());

You can find more information on the selection service here: Using the Selection Service.

Tuinal

"viewed 9 times"... nobody look those questions ;) Anyway, well detailed answer. +1 – Idolater

When getting the selection from the package explorer, the elements are not instances if IFile. You need to perform JDT->resource conversions. – Hinckley

@Hinckley The cast throws an exception indeed. But what do you mean perform JDT->resource conversion – Tussis

Where is "org.eclipse.jdt.ui.PackageExplorer" defined as a constant? Dont like magic strings. – Khat

Answer 2

The code would be like:

IWorkbenchWindow window =
    PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getActiveWorkbenchWindow();
ISelection selection = window.getSelectionService().getSelection("org.eclipse.jdt.ui.PackageExplorer");

You view an example in an Action like this LuaFileWizardAction class.

Idolater

Your link to LuaFileWizardAction class seems to be broken. It redirects to blackducksoftware.com – Judd