## Introduction

When you are familiar with building and testing the JDK, you may want to configure an IDE to work with the source code. The instructions differ a bit depending on whether you are interested in working with the native (C/C++) or the Java code.

### IDE support for native code

There are a few ways to generate IDE configuration for the native sources, depending on which IDE to use.

#### Visual Studio Code

The make system can generate a Visual Studio Code workspace that has C/C++ source indexing configured correctly, as well as launcher targets for tests and the Java launcher. After configuring, a workspace for the configuration can be generated using:

    make vscode-project

This creates a file called `jdk.code-workspace` in the build output folder. The full location will be printed after the workspace has been generated. To use it, choose `File -> Open Workspace...` in Visual Studio Code.

##### Alternative indexers

The main `vscode-project` target configures the default C++ support in Visual Studio Code. There are also other source indexers that can be installed, that may provide additional features. It's currently possible to generate configuration for two such indexers, clangd and rtags. These can be configured by appending the name of the indexer to the make target, such as:

    make vscode-project-clangd

Additional instructions for configuring the given indexer will be displayed after the workspace has been generated.

#### Visual Studio

The make system can generate a Visual Studio project for the Hotspot native source. After configuring, the project is generated using:

    make hotspot-ide-project

This creates a file named `jvm.vcxproj` in `ide\hotspot-visualstudio` subfolder of the build output folder. The file can be opened in Visual Studio via `File -> Open -> Project/Solution`.

#### Compilation Database

The make system can generate generic native code indexing support in the form of a Compilation Database that can be used by many different IDEs and source code indexers.

    make compile-commands

It's also possible to generate the Compilation Database for the HotSpot source code only, which is a bit faster as it includes less information.

    make compile-commands-hotspot

### IDE support for Java code

#### IntelliJ IDEA

The JDK project has a script that can be used for indexing the project with IntelliJ. After configuring and building the JDK, an IntelliJ workspace can be generated by running the following command in the top-level folder of the cloned repository:

    bash bin/idea.sh

To use it, choose `File -> Open...` in IntelliJ and select the folder where you ran the above script.

Next, configure the project SDK in IntelliJ. Open `File -> Project Structure -> Project` and select `build/<config>/images/jdk` as the SDK to use.

In order to run the tests from the IDE, you can use the JTReg plugin. Instructions for building and using the plugin can be found here.