OSGI: Is it possible Import-package and add a visibility:=reexport?

i开发者_运维问答 would like to import a package rather than require bundle in a manifest and have all bundles that require the former package inherit the imported package. I am assuming that it is possible to set visibility: reexport, but Eclipse does not complain if i had this option...

It's not possible and it's not necessary either. A bundle using Import-Package can simply obtain the package from the original bundle that exports it; there is no need to "route" the dependency through an intermediate bundle.

This is one of the biggest advantages of Import-Package: an importing bundle neither knows nor cares which other bundle(s) it's getting the packages from.

You can only reexport when requiring bundles.

Import-Package should be preferred over Require-Bundle or DynamicImport-Package. The former is only really necessary if you must deal with split packages whereas the latter was only intended to address situations where you didn't know the class name in advance (e.g., SPI-like situations), although it can also be used safely as an optional import-like facility. In general, you should be avoiding things that hide dependencies (e.g., broad dynamic imports) or obscure them (e.g., requiring bundles). The fact that Require-Bundle supports reexporting is a decision that should have never been made and there is no reasonable use case for this feature, all it does it further obscure dependencies and create a tangled mess.

No, it's not possible to reexport a package. For that you will need to use a bundle, or a different class loading strategy.

I'm apparently missing the "reply to comment" link, so forgive me that I'm replying to the question in the comments here...

Whether you are in a "hierarchy" or not doesn't really make a difference. First bundles are used in different contexts, so they won't always be used in a container that knows that they want. Second, a bundle still doesn't use everything available to it in a "hierarchy", so acting it does just leads to dependency fan out, since the real dependencies are hidden.

I am not sure what your problem is. If you do not want to require a bundle, you have to import all packages you need. To generate this list you can use the maven-bundle-plugin (for maven projects). If you do not want to generate the concrete list of needed imports, than you can try

DynamicImport-Package: *

which should import the needed packages on demand.