Build Eclipse Java Project from Command Line

You can build an eclipse project via a workspace from the command line:

eclipsec.exe -noSplash -data "D:\Source\MyProject\workspace" -application org.eclipse.jdt.apt.core.aptBuild

It uses the jdt apt plugin to build your workspace automatically. This is also known as a 'Headless Build'. Damn hard to figure out. If you're not using a win32 exe, you can try this:

java -cp startup.jar -noSplash -data "D:\Source\MyProject\workspace" -application org.eclipse.jdt.apt.core.aptBuild

Update

Several years ago eclipse replaced startup.jar with the "equinox launcher"

https://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_Launcher

On Eclipse Mars (MacOX):

java -jar /Applications/Eclipse.app/Contents/Eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.100.v20150511-1540.jar -noSplash -data "workspace" -application org.eclipse.jdt.apt.core.aptBuild

The -data parameter specifies the location of your workspace.

The version number for the equinox launcher will depend on what version of eclipse you have.

To complete André's answer, an ant solution could be like the one described in Emacs, JDEE, Ant, and the Eclipse Java Compiler, as in:

      <javac          srcdir="${src}"          destdir="${build.dir}/classes">         <compilerarg            compiler="org.eclipse.jdt.core.JDTCompilerAdapter"            line="-warn:+unused -Xemacs"/>        <classpath refid="compile.classpath" />      </javac>

The compilerarg element also allows you to pass in additional command line args to the eclipse compiler.

You can find a full ant script example here which would be invoked in a command line with:

java -cp C:/eclipse-SDK-3.4-win32/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.100.v20080509-1800.jar org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main -data "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\workspace" -application org.eclipse.ant.core.antRunner -buildfile build.xml -verbose

BUT all that involves ant, which is not what Keith is after.

For a batch compilation, please refer to Compiling Java code, especially the section "Using the batch compiler"

The batch compiler class is located in the JDT Core plug-in. The name of the class is org.eclipse.jdt.compiler.batch.BatchCompiler. It is packaged into plugins/org.eclipse.jdt.core_3.4.0..jar. Since 3.2, it is also available as a separate download. The name of the file is ecj.jar.
Since 3.3, this jar also contains the support for jsr199 (Compiler API) and the support for jsr269 (Annotation processing). In order to use the annotations processing support, a 1.6 VM is required.

Running the batch compiler From the command line would give

java -jar org.eclipse.jdt.core_3.4.0<qualifier>.jar -classpath rt.jar A.java

or:

java -jar ecj.jar -classpath rt.jar A.java

All java compilation options are detailed in that section as well.

The difference with the Visual Studio command line compilation feature is that Eclipse does not seem to directly read its .project and .classpath in a command-line argument. You have to report all information contained in the .project and .classpath in various command-line options in order to achieve the very same compilation result.

So, then short answer is: "yes, Eclipse kind of does." ;)

After 27 years, I too, am uncomfortable developing in an IDE. I tried these suggestions (above) - and probably just didn't follow everything right -- so I did a web-search and found what worked for me at 'http://incise.org/android-development-on-the-command-line.html'.

The answer seemed to be a combination of all the answers above (please tell me if I'm wrong and accept my apologies if so).

As mentioned above, eclipse/adt does not create the necessary ant files. In order to compile without eclipse IDE (and without creating ant scripts):

1) Generate build.xml in your top level directory:

android list targets  (to get target id used below)android update project --target target_id --name project_name  --path top_level_directory   ** my sample project had a target_id of 1 and a project name of 't1', and    I am building from the top level directory of project   my command line looks like android update project --target 1 --name t1 --path `pwd`

2) Next I compile the project. I was a little confused by the request to not use 'ant'. Hopefully -- requester meant that he didn't want to write any ant scripts. I say this because the next step is to compile the application using ant

 ant target    this confused me a little bit, because i thought they were talking about the    android device, but they're not.  It's the mode  (debug/release)    my command line looks like  ant debug

3) To install the apk onto the device I had to use ant again:

 ant target install    ** my command line looked like  ant debug install

4) To run the project on my android phone I use adb.

 adb shell 'am start -n your.project.name/.activity'    ** Again there was some confusion as to what exactly I had to use for project     My command line looked like adb shell 'am start -n com.example.t1/.MainActivity'    I also found that if you type 'adb shell' you get put to a cli shell interface    where you can do just about anything from there.

3A) A side note: To view the log from device use:

 adb logcat

3B) A second side note: The link mentioned above also includes instructions for building the entire project from the command.

Hopefully, this will help with the question. I know I was really happy to find anything about this topic here.